emails, pen friends, offers and heart warming fuzziness. (post comes with vomit bucket)

Day15 to week three

Apparently I care far less about handing my email address out than my phone number to someone I have barely exchanged pleasantries. I was asked for my phone number and created a challenge for the possible recipient should he wish to accept it. Upon result he would then be allowed access to the digits. I did this for a couple of reasons. One, I thought it was a bit forward, which is ironic in the traditional dating sense. Two, he seemed a fun so I thought this could be a fun little challenge for him, and of course it depends more on banter ability than factual correctness. And rising to the challenge in the form of a joke also counts.

It does seem like a strange concept to have to make the effort to write down or type all sorts of details and experiences to a person you are ‘dating’ (can I really use dating at this point?), when my last experience of dating a guy was saying as little as possible in texts and being incredibly aloof. The term dating is actually incorrect because you’re not dating someone you’ve never met. You’re just getting to know them. Which is another contradiction because when you date someone you get to know them, but that’s normally in the flesh.

a couple of emails later…

When I signed up for this I thought the most I could get out of it was a good piece of writing fodder. I never thought someone would actually offer to show me around a city, promise me a hug (what a slut!) and want to get to know me.

Either way, I am more intrigued by this person the more I talk to him. Who would have thought! It’s quite nice really, my confidence is booming and for once I am genuinely interested in another person. At least for now I have a new pen friend and online dating is gradually winning me over. 

woo-ing vs reality

DAY 13 “what a difference a day makes…” Or does it?

For me, it’s been a while since I spoke to any guy who shares interests with me, is interested in what my face looks like and how I speak. So I suppose the experiment has begun to suck me in. It’s refreshing to talk, or email in my case, to someone and feel a small glimmer of enthusiasm about communicating with them.  It’s handy being matched with people because it takes out the monotony and effort that very often comes along with communicating with the opposite sex.  And I know both men and women would agree with me.

At least for the last year, talking to most men has become tedious and exasperating, apart from in a strictly friendly and benign manner. It usually comes to light pretty quickly that I have nothing in common with them, apart from the fact that we are the same species and that we are in the same country. This never puts them off ‘cos they just want to get in my knickers and it’s usually on a drunken Saturday night so it’s generally just blithering rather than chat of any note.

That got dull. Besides, nobody tells you this: one-night stands are fun until you find yourself in a panic in a doctor’s office.  And that’s another thing. Boys, drunken boys in particular, are generally lazy, un-gentlemenly and view protection as some arbitrary fun –dampener. Idiots. Now I can tick off ‘a sense of social responsibility’ from the article.

I appreciate the little things in life (recommended to pessimists everywhere), so however incoherent, hyperactive and perhaps even pointless this exchange may prove to be, I’m just enjoying communicating without the main topic turning to- ‘Hey, I got summat magic for you and I’m open for biz. Do you want to come back to mine?’ That’s a little more difficult to get away with online without alcohol and dark corners.

Although, it seems that my safe little world of doilies and cross-polination, has finally been soiled by a bloke with a phone, a few drinks and a habit for getting naked. Said bloke sent me a photo of him cooking in the buff.  Maybe he thought I’d find it funny, or he (clearly) has problems talking to women, or he just wants to make it obvious he just wants sex. I thought he just wanted sex; and there’s Nothing wrong with that if that’s what you’re up for.

However I’m not in the habit of sending or receiving sexts or pics with just anyone. Maybe with a long term boyfriend but that’s just me. Think about it, they could use that for anything. I am a fucking lady and I deserve better than the presumption of a naked photo.

And we are ladies! And here comes the old taboo. Women also want sex just as much as men. We just (appear to) care more about who we do it with – or at least it seems that way to me, feel free to correct me with rage and indignation on behalf of your gentlemanly selves. The point I’m trying to make is a lot of ladies out there also don’t want a man to just send them inappropriate photos of themselves as soon as you say hi to each other. It makes you look like a goon. Besides, whatever happened to woo-ing?

So glamour modelling aside, Internet dating could be a really handy tool for breaking old habits and how you view the opposite sex. If you can put the camera down long enough to type a paragraph.

DAY 14

 I have had two messages from two different men. One has offered me his number, the other has asked for mine. I’m a cyber slut, playing two holographic dates off each other.

To the issue, if there is one, of giving my phone number out to essentially strangers, over the Internet. Obviously I’m aware that interweb dating is getting more and more popular but surely this goes through every novice’s head? They say that serial killers used to be someone’s next door neighbour. As this is a dating ‘service’, one reason not to give my number out would be to make full use of the service I’ve paid for from the safety of profile and continue with my hidden details. Surely I should get to know these people a little bit before handing over my number to a potential Norman Bates.

This begs the question- How do we survive in the real world?! It’s the norm to meet people in person and get to know them on a far more intimate level, rather than by exchanging tightly controlled greetings, questions and emails. You may meet some person in a bar that you’re physically attracted to and exchange a couple of witty words of banter, then deciding you might like to spend an evening in their company to find out if they are said Bates character. But you don’t know them. You don’t know what makes them tick, you haven’t talked and yet you’ve decided you want to go on a date with this person.

We are, naturally, far more cautious in the web-dating world, and yet you ‘talk’ a lot more, ask more questions and get to know them quicker because it’s not a conventional mode of acquaintance. We act with so much suspicion over e-dating, and yet by the time, if, you get to meeting this person in the flesh, you actually, supposedly, know much more about whether they are a psycho or not than you would if you met them in a bar and wanted to go on a date. The crux of the matter is whether you feel that this drains the situation of romance and mystery, and how much that matters to you as an individual.

Exchanging and using numbers, calling & texting makes it all seem real. It’s a bit scary really- it means that you’re actually interacting with a human and it changes the gear of communication between you and the other person from cyber-imaginary-flirtations to reality.  Scary, but exciting.

Day 12 - Gents of the Beige Variety

Before you read the full rambling thoughts below, I would like to warn any men reading this that you might find some of the following a tad abrasive or harsh. You are of course entitled to your opinions, but if you do find yourselves getting hot under the collar over words I’ve written- maybe this is how you act around women, or you say things like the examples I’ve given - then think of this as some tips. Tips on what not to say to get that hot, sexy lady you’ve been lusting over talking to you. Because this applies to any situation and otherwise she’ll think you’re a tool.

I had a couple of the ‘usual’ matches; guys who have totally different values and life goals. I say usual because it’s that time-old issue: out of everyone you will ever meet, date, kiss, befriend and/or do the horizontal bed dance with, you’ll only meet a select few with whom you really want to spend any amount of time. These guys in particular are ones who think keeping fit is a value.

Here’s the dictionary’s definition: (values) a person's principles or standards of behavior; one's judgment of what is important in life.

If someone claims that ‘keeping fit’ falls in line with that definition, then their priorities are so far out of whack, I would never be able to take them seriously.

AND – I’m not sure I should put this in but, well I’m going to anyway… Pretty much all these guys are actually a bit bland. For instance:

‘I am most passionate about balancing my career with my personal life’

What gibberish! Feel free to explain it to me, but how can anyone be passionate about that? It’s not an activity. That kind of sentence alerts the heterosexual woman’s internal idiot/player – radar. Mine was hooting madly 'Aroooooga!' and flashing blinding red police lights: At first I thought the man who wrote it was a bit of an imbecile, as you can see. Then my inner cynic/realist kicked in. I thought ‘this man, has written anything to try to get laid.’ I wonder how many women fall for it, because if mine’s the general reaction then he’s not doing very well. (Remember the guy who listed ‘poor grammar’ as something that would annoy him?)  Who wants to be thought of as first a moron, then a player?

The worst I’ve seen so far, reminds me of a prior housemate. He had a mild complaint of OCD and I nicknamed him ‘Dad’. It was a guy who listed cleaning as an activity that he enjoys. I think, perhaps rather prejudicially, I may have found the reason why some (I said some not all!) of these guys are using a dating website. 

They’re good on paper, but rather like your Nan’s beige house, after a while the lack of excitement gets a bit boring and you search for bolder colours. You can’t help losing interest in the same bland colour, you just do. And this isn’t mean, it’s just true.

Days 10 and 11- conversing and enlightenment

Since I’ve gained some male interest (boo-yah!) and these males have contacted me, I thought it would be less confusing (and fair to them) to refer to communications from them  with fake names.

*Fred messaged my account at 2am asking me to text him, but I viewed it as a drunken embarrassment for him, and he apologised. Not that he needed to. It struck me as a little odd (though I know it's odd to scrutinise). If you were in the habit of messaging others when drunk, would you go to the effort of signing in to a dating service to do it? Maybe I’m being naive but why not just give a friend a call? 

We’ll call the next fellow Tim* because it’s a polite sounding name and he messages consistently and politely. I shouldn’t complain as it’s nice to have attention and chats, but I’m the kind of girl who likes to have a bit of chase, some mystery, at least at first. I could name a few people who have given away too much too soon (we’ve all done it) and I lost interest and I’m afraid this guy might be one of those. I am living on  a farm at the moment so I don’t have a whole lot of witty anecdotes from my terribly exciting life and it’s entirely likely the chat will run dry as there’s not huge amounts of banter sidling along with the constant updates of day to day life- which by the way, not exactly the best way of enticing a newbie.

‘Hi my name’s  insert name   . Today I ate breakfast, went to work and drank a coffee.’ 

Raise the roof! And I’ve been sending just as boring messages back so I know I’m no better. But I wont be harsh, I’ll keep talking to this bloke for the experiment and ‘cos he seems nice.

I also had a very witty message from a new guy. We’ll call him  Henry because every Henry I’ve ever met has been fun. *Henry sent me a message that showed he’d read my profile and it made me laugh, out loud actually. A genuine LOL using a dating website, romance for the digital age? I'm not sure if that's supposed to be ironic or just sad. Anyway, the high point was reading that he has ‘ten judgemental spiders who are allergic to cheese’ as it messes up their ‘web glands’.

I don’t know about anyone else out there, regardless of gender, but when I receive interest from someone who appears not to have received their genetics from trolls (i.e cute and smart and funny- what?!) I tend to get a bit excited because it doesn’t happen that often. Obviously I sent him a totally incoherent response in my attempt to be hilarious.

Possible irony or sadness aside, when you genuinely connect with someone you should be able to do it via email or face to face conversation. Having said that it is possible that you can write wonderful emails to someone as you have the time to edit and re-draft to make things perfect and intelligible, but then you could talk in person and it might all go to pot. 

SO…

In the space of a week I seem to have opened my mind to new people. I previously looked upon communicating with men as some dirty act akin to being raped in the mouth and already I can feel my scepticism and dread ebbing away. In as much as I am quite happy being single and doing my own thing, it’s just nice to begin chatting to someone like a normal human being, and with the knowledge and flattery that there was something about you that caught their attention other than your vagina. Which they can’t attempt to get in to immediately as they haven’t met you in the flesh and can’t try to read your thoughts via your boobs. 

N.B. I noticed I haven't defined what this experiment is for. Well, it's to see how using a dating website differs from meeting someone face to face as an overall experience.    Among a few questions in my head for this I wondered, is it less romantic or does that not matter these days? Is it just a big hoax set up by the government for the purposes of extinguishing us all quickly and painlessly in the event of a zombie apocalypse? Are the people you meet on this anything like the people you habitually date?

Days 6, 7, 8- Responding

Are you an instant responder or do you like to play the waiting game? No matter your motives, everybody has their own strategy and reasons. What I want to know is, do you adopt a new one online because you’re online? It seems less real, as if you have less pride to lose and if you’re in the habit of replying quickly to emails would this follow?

How close is this to reality and how you really respond to people?

The Answer is – very close. It’s basically reality, we live in the digital age! So once you go from using the dating site to texting, you’re back on your own turf. But you might have been there already.

A guy I’ve exchanged a couple of messages with since yesterday, has now asked if I want to meet up. I suppose that’s exciting, or should be. We’ve exchanged a few messages in only 24 hours, but something about this proposal bothers me. The cynic inside my head is blaring. We’ve paid real money to use a service, so why not use it for a little longer? At least long enough to assess further whether this person is sane.

(Next day)

I do realise I have been very unwilling to allow anyone to get emotionally near me. I tend to put up emotional barriers, keep people at arm’s length, as if they’re some dirty bug you pick up between two fingers. ‘Ugh, don’t touch it; you might catch humanity!’

I would like to rectify this by being nice to a fellow human, try not to take any kind of situation too seriously or suspiciously and actually enjoy the company of a person. So after realising that I am a totally unhinged sceptic, I thought that agreeing to meet a stranger from the internet could actually be an attempt at a positive step in the relationships-with-humans direction.

But hold on! I’m willing to be open to other people, but not to have my limbs hacked off. I still want to check this person is vaguely normal. I know you’re thinking that you can’t be totally sure so even when and if the big step comes of a face-to-face meeting, there will be further precautions in place.

Unless you live in the real world, you meet most people in your life in the flesh before exchanging contact details. This new way all seems very backward to me. 

days four and five

Day Four

I have been sent overnight, a new list of men as normal. I have my very own overnight man-courier-stork! A couple seemed ok, and I even had some of the magical questions to answer. This sending questions to someone you don’t even know grated on me for a while.  This is a service and the site tries to make it easy for you to connect with people, however I felt obliged to apply more than wanting to. I didn't want to seem rude or dismissive and I wanted to be more open minded.

To mix things up (read: entertain myself), I sent a couple of responses that were wholly untrue about myself. Such as, 
Question: "How often do you find yourself laughing?"

Answer: ‘I’m generally a pretty serious person’.

And, question: How romantic are you? 
Answer: ‘I don’t consider myself to be romantic.’

I understand that this says I’m resisting (still) and that I am quite deflective with potential new men, and also that I can be mean! But I also did it to see if I got any responses, after all that's the original reason I set out to do this. To see what it's all about and why it may be unusual or not. Unsurprisingly no one wanted to talk to a go who never laughs or canoodles.

Day Five

I wasn't sure how to use the site after sending an‘icebreaker’ or ‘questions'. If you want to keep in contact what do you do after that? What's considered forward on here? Sending a list of deal breakers, which is the guided protocol from the site that you can use if you want, seemed a bit sterile to me. I tried it a couple of times after this and it was no big deal. It was like removing anchovies in a caesar salad. You are weeding out the people who you haven't yet realised won't work for you in a far more honest way before any feelings may get hurt because at this stage, you're just window shopping.

I noticed that you can check how many times matches view your profile. Which means they can see how many times you view their profile. You may be checking to see if you’ve communicated or just have the worst internet known to man. But you end up looking like a stalker. I wondered a couple of times why my profile was of such interest. Even with the excuses I just mentioned.
From that perspective it’s no different from dating the regular way. You check people on Facebook, look at their photos, re-read messages; only on here, it’s available to be seen and actually after a while I started to get flattered that matches were possibly viewing my profile after we’d already begun communicating.

I did wonder if these methods are a bit forward. For instance, sending a list of ‘must-haves & cant-stands’ to someone who’s basic information you barely know  seems like a bit of a jump, and I don’t know how to get round it- can you not just chat a bit and chew the fat? It’s very business- 'come on, get to know each other, get it on, no time to lose!' Really? I would be quite happy to dawdle over a couple of details, to chat about absolute rubbish and see if the person actually has a sense of humour and isn’t a totally psycho from another planet, rather than going straight in to these details.

Because of that thought I began to greet all the suggested men in my inbox with the same thought ‘go on then…’, and proceed to have a look, (unless I made the first move, which is very unlike me).  Surely one point of joining a dating website is to liberate yourself from pride and shyness? The Internet can act as a buffer to hide behind and not take it so hard if someone doesn’t want to know, because, they're not necessarily rejecting you, they're rejecting a profile. If they reject at all...

Cyber Flirt: Online Dating, the beginning

My sister recently found a new boyfriend after joining a dating site. He seems like a nice guy.  ‘What’s the harm?’ I thought. An experiment commenced.

This is to see how using a dating website differs from meeting someone face to face as an overall experience.  Among a few questions I wondered, is it less romantic or does that not matter these days? Is it just a big [long winded] hoax to extinguish us in the event of a zombie apocalypse? Are the people you meet on this anything like the people you habitually date?

Days 1 and 2

The questionnaire you fill out to create a profile for prospective ‘dates’ took two hours to fill out. My first thoughts were why would anyone feel the need to use this facility? Understanding of course that online dating is far less taboo than it was just three years ago, there was still the knee jerk reaction ‘what psycho can’t get a girlfriend the normal way?’ In this day and age, how do you define a normal way to meet someone?

So far I’ve been matched with men in their early to mid thirties, mainly living in America (which I am not) and for some unknown reason to me, all seem to be either Engineers or Accountants or something similarly technical and completely different to what I do. No matter, opposites attract and oddly Engineers and Accountants are in my top five attractive jobs for a man. That's right women list these things.

My first impressions therefore are that these men aren’t that compatible with me on the surface i.e. lifestyle and situation. At this stage of my life, like so many people my age, where you are in your career, how often you like to go out, or even just having the desire to travel can turn out to be important factors in who you do or don’t date. However, when I looked at these Gents profiles’, they all said they’re energetic fun loving guys with a thirst for life and laughter and enjoy making people smile. Sounds promising if only my internal cynic would believe it (a recessive hand-me-down gene).

 “As if! ” the radar announced. “They’re all just saying what they think women want to hear to get in to our [cyber] knickers.” I reigned in the radar long enough to remind myself this is an experiment and as it’s online it’s most likely harder to get played [see urban dictionary's definition, my personal favourite was: A certain class of low-rent, slack-jawed fuckups has decided that backstabbing and misogyny are totally radical, so the word is sometimes used as a compliment or term of endearment between male friends, as in the greeting "what's up, player?"]. Maybe. 

Which proposed another thought. Does it not take out the spontaneity and romance of meeting some one face to face by discussing terms online? Body language, a blush of the cheeks, intonations of voice, without which seems a bit mechanical. Jane Austin would turn in her grave at the lack of courting and hiding behind fans. That said, it’s all quite honest and this is the modern world so Jane Austin doesn’t live here. If she did Elizabeth Bennett would have a career and a coffee habit, and Mr Wickham would have Chlamydia.

Day 3

I am so far thoroughly convinced that this website knows nothing about the kinds of guys I’m attracted to. I am being matched with gents, but  gents who non-the-less I have nothing in common with, for instance, men in their early thirties who don’t drink and want to settle down. Of course there's nothing wrong with that, but I did state on my profile that I enjoy going out and am not ready to settle down. To better explain myself, I think it’s a rather unrealistic expectation to assume that attitude to going out or readiness to settle (I hate that word) don’t matter when you meet someone on a dating website, or anywhere for that matter. This is a place where your personal and basic information is displayed and therefore linked to expectations of a partner and would be assumed to coincide.

I’m sorry if this makes me look shallow but I also maintain that you aren’t going to go to bed with someone if you don’t find them physically attractive; though I do understand that these things sometimes come after a while but I imagine that happens a lot more with friends than inter-web dating.

Taking the above, and that I was being fairly resistive to the whole process, in to consideration, I decided it couldn’t just be the site that had a problem. I finished completing my profile to elicit better matches. Someone soon showed interest who at the time I thought was a better fit than previous matches.

On the site, you have the option to get in contact with people via ice breakers, such as sending them smiley faces, asking them to answer certain questions or just sending certain ready-made sentences. After sending my reply to, ‘I’d love to chat!’, with, “I think it would be best to respond in a controlled way’- again, such romance! I was sent some of the questions on offer, which, were quite serious in his choice for a first time chat. For example,  do I want to move for a relationship? What’s my attitude to work? Personally this seemed a bit much. Most people you meet wouldn't ask that after meeting them only moments before. However, I suppose it shows that there are people who use this service in the business of romance that it's for.

Upon answering the ‘questions’ I ask some of my own. I decided on a lighter tact with maybe one serious question, to see if he has a sense of humour. One of my questions was, ‘What quirk would most annoy you in a partner?’ Out of the options of ‘being too clingy in a social situation’, ‘is not familiar with current events’ ‘superstitious’ and ’poor grammar’, he chose ‘poor grammar’ as the most annoying ‘quirk’ in a partner. Really? Out of those options that’s what this guy chose. I wonder more what that says about him than anyone with bad grammar.