Misadventures in Online Dating

October 2016

After my jaunt to Austria, I returned to the Bavarian forest to continue my work exchange. I wrote about this period more extensively in an earlier post, and it was hands-down one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Aside from my duties around the house, I had plenty of alone time in my room, or sitting in the garden, or walking the dog in the forest, where I could reflect and think. I needed this solitude, this break between acts. At the same time though, I wasn’t alone, and I truly became part of the family.

For the first time in a long time, I wasn’t working, I wasn’t traveling, I was just . . . existing, with a lot of time to exist. I helped with the housework and the kids’ English, but still I had hours of time to myself each day. I read. I wrote. I got sucked into The Borgias, an over-the top addictive costume drama. And I started thinking: what do I do now? Particularly, what do I do now that I’m single?

Can you believe that at the time I began my epic relationship, internet dating was in it’s infancy? At that time, I had one middle-aged cousin who met her spouse on JDate and had a handful of less than socially adept aquaintances finding dates via Myspace and World of Warcraft. In the ensuing decade, this phenomenon has become the normal way to meet people. I was curious about this strange new world, and decided to make a profile. As an experiment, of course.

I’m pretty terrible with technology, so I googled “What internet dating site should I use?” and came up with a list of articles. Oh my Jesus, there are so many dating sites and apps out there now, many of which I hadn’t even heard of. Which to choose?

I decided to try OkCupid because 1) I have friends who have used it and liked it and 2) because I really just like personality quizzes and the OkCupid personality quiz is endless. You can just answer question after question forever, and I had a ton of time on my hands.

I nervously made my profile. I tried not to think about it much, but it was kind of hard. I hate talking myself up, and even though I wasn’t using the site seriously I still wanted it to look good. I picked a username that referenced a Chaplin film (God, do I have to be such a snob all the time???), a photo from Oktoberfest where I thought I looked happy and had a giant beer in hand, and set my location to Los Angeles, since I’d be going back for a spell and maybe if I met someone exceptional online I could see them for real when I was there.

In terms of sexual preference, I set my profile as bisexual, although for me, I don’t really like the term bisexual. I feel like to be truly bisexual one ought to be attracted to men and women equally, and I definitely prefer men, but I still find women attractive. I don’t really like defining my sexuality because it has always felt like a fluid part of my personality. But OkCupid doesn’t really give you an option for “the vague gray area between straight and gay” so bisexual was close enough. Coming from a long-term, monogamous, heterosexual relationship, this side of my sexuality had been a nonissue for a while, but I really wanted to be open to new possibilities. Also, I just wanted to see what was out there.

With OkCupid, after you make the profile, and before they let you take the endless personality quiz, you have to look at some pictures of other users and choose 3 so the algorithm can match you to people.

This is the part where I realized that dating may be a little difficult for me. I quickly discovered that I am a picky, horrible snob. I kept scrolling down through endless lists of photos, trying to find 3 people I actually found attractive. I picked the first one easily. . . OK, that guy’s hot, click him. . . keep scrolling. . . keep scrolling. . .  but where are the other hot people??? Um, that one looks nice. He’ll do.

Now I could finally experience what I’d been waiting for: the endless personality quiz! In a relationship, who do you prefer to be taller? Doesn’t matter. Have you ever traveled around another country alone? Yes, I’m doing that right now. Are you kinky? Not particularly. Are you an adventurous eater? What kind of a question is that? How trusting are you where it concerns your government? Interesting question. 

While I was having fun answering these questions, little bubbles kept popping up. People were looking at me! Right now, at this very moment. Some even liked me! Wow, this could be exciting. But none of them were particularly enticing. Now that I’d gotten sucked into the rabbit hole of answering questions, I could see who I matched with. I scrolled through the list. Meh. Really, no one noteworthy.

Maybe it’s not just that I’m picky, maybe it’s the selection of OkCupid profile users in Los Angeles? There were a few different types to the OkCupid users of La La Land:

1) The 20-30 something guys who were pretty normal, played video games and wanted to be writers for film or television. They all looked very average, attempted to make jokes on their profiles, and sometimes their photos included animals to up their game.

2) The guys who were maybe a little more street, and wanted to be personal trainers or get into the music business. Their profiles usually included shirtless pictures of tan, muscled torsos.

3) The bi girls who looked like they still shopped at hot topic, usually with black hair, tattoos, and vintage-inspired clothes or makeup. All of which either were probably still in college and curious, or definitely bisexual – and definitely cray cray.

There’s a reason why I left LA, and it was probably because the thought of dating there gave me cold sweats. Not any of my people. Where were the film nerds? The musicians? The artists? The creative, angsty souls of my youth that I could never be with because I had been with someone else?

The next day, I checked my email. It was clogged with emails from OkCupid. I had a handful of messages, and many, many likes and views. I was popular! I read the messages. They were really disappointing.

“You like to chill? Take a look at my last pic”

“Cutie 😉 I’ve got a question for you!” (no question was ever asked)

“Hey”.

Stimulating, to be sure. I mean, how does this ever work for people? I’m not going to say “Hey” back just for the hell of saying “Hey”. I have better fucking things to do than to say “Hey” to you. I answered a few more questions, and logged out.

The third day, my OkCupid habit started to spiral out of control. I’m not sure how many times I checked it and I don’t even know what I did on there. I probably answered close to a hundred more questions. Truly, the personality quiz is endless.

On the fourth day, I received this message: “So you’re the blind girl who regains her sight thanks to Chaplin?” Nail on the head, rideronthestorm* (clearly a Doors fan). I checked out his profile. I was surprised to see we had a lot of the same interests. His photo included a dog. He had a nice smile. And nice hair. He wasn’t too young or old. He could be a contender.

But as I thought that, a new feeling came over me: I felt guilty. Sure, there were a lot of lame people on OkCupid, as the past 4 days had proven to me, but there were also guys like this, who seemed like decent people that actually read other people’s profiles and had been exposed to classic cinema. I wasn’t ready to meet anyone, I wasn’t even in the country, and here I was, providing the falsest of advertising. 

It had only been 4 days, but this Pandora’s Box had been open for too long. I didn’t need to let this internet obsession take over my life, attracting more weirdos and leading on still more strangers in the process.

I went to delete my profile – and disabled it instead. You know. Just in case.

m.

Next time: The end of the work exchange and meeting Cameron in Berlin before returning to the United States.

*Username has been changed, although this one probably is out there somewhere.