First impressions

Beautiful book stitched by Rebecca

I wasn't sure about writing about this initially, but after a couple of people told me they would like to read it, I thought I would chronicle my fledgling experiences with online dating.  Yeah, I said it.  It's a mildly embarrassing topic to broach, but I'm a big fan of honesty, even when it's awkward, so here we are.

I never thought that I would try it out, but I have several friends (two of whom are now married) who have met their other halves online and who have recommended it.  I work in a mostly female environment and I've grown to love spending most of my spare time with my family and friends, so, more out of curiosity than anything, I decided to give it a shot, just to see if there's a chance of stumbling upon like-minded people on the Interwebs.  

To be completely honest, I don't expect to meet someone.  I'm well aware that my coupled friends are the exceptions.  I just want to see what's out there.  I imagined it would be quite a strange process (my many, many friends who have tried it have corroborated this) and decided to treat it as a social experiment.  I'm giving myself at least six months to get a real feel of what it's like, and if nothing else, I'll have done something new and completely out of my comfort zone.

Two weeks into the venture, I haven't physically met anyone but I've communicated with several people and met with a whole bunch of rejection.  And the vibe I'm getting so far is: this is hard.

I've never thought of myself as someone who has particularly high standards and I'm trying to keep an open mind, so my only criteria is that we match on basic values, we communicate well, he doesn't have a kid, and, this is key, he seems fairly normal.  

You'd be surprised just how rare that is.

When I told my friends this they seemed amused because sometimes I'm quite a strange person to be around.  The thing is though, that I don't actually believe that anyone is really "normal".  I love that people are quirky and different.  I'm just looking for someone who's reliable.  Someone who is who he says he is and isn't looking to play pretend or get entangled in weird games.  

My good friend, who started her own online experiment around the same time as me, showed me a message from someone who wanted her to know right off the bat that he was currently "pansexual, sapiosexual and polyamorous" but that it might change at moment's notice and that he had worked (and loved working) in an adult toy store.  I don't think the revelations were quite so strange as the fact that he had chosen to open with them.

My experiences have been somewhat tamer.  One man lied to the system to get "matched" with people and a couple messages in, revealed that he actually had a child.  Lying?  No.  

Another dude, codenamed Harvey, seemed to be interested in nothing but my taste in movies, as if he was judging me completely by what I liked to watch.  Each time I answered, it was as if I had passed another level of a test and was attacked with increasingly nuanced questions, for example, "And what do you think of comic book adaptations of movies in the last decade?".

One guy, whom I'll call Ray, started a perfectly innocuous conversation about books and recommended something he enjoyed.  When I said, "Oh cool, I'll try to get my hands on it," he responded, "And I'll try to get my hands on you!" which was wrong to me on so many levels that I was, at first, completely tongue-tied and then confused about whether I was being overly prudish (instinct says no).  He called me some odd endearments later on and I finally told him that I felt really uncomfortable and that I honestly just wanted to have a simple chat.  His response was that in his experience, everybody liked flattery, flirting and endearments, some people just hid "their blushes" better. 

In general though, it's just been a slow plod through conversation after awkward conversation with people who either don't find me interesting or don't seem to want to talk beyond asking how my day was and what meetings I'd attended.  

I think in some ways, that's been the most weird thing about it.  Without the process of face-to-face meeting at work or in school, there is no slow buildup through friendship.  There are no awkward sidelong glances or outings in large groups that slowly whittle down to two or moments of bonding over projects or long conversations on the phone.  There is barely any time to see what the person looks like without a mask on.  From the get go, everyone knows what everyone is looking for, and that makes the process at once easier and more difficult.  

People that you might get the chance to know slowly in real life are passed on in the click of a mouse, and in the same length of time, pass on you.  Candidates are so inundated with random messages and pop ups that meaningful things can get lost in all that noise.  Those that we would be forced to give a chance in life thanks to the rules of courtesy can be ignored.

And conversation is a rare privilege.  

Today, while attempting to talk to someone who only answered my questions with "Oh, that's nice" or "I see", I felt a sudden pang of longing and I realised that I missed my exes for no other reason than the fact that I could talk with them.

Part of the magic of meeting and slowly falling in love with someone is the long, meandering conversations that you have with them when you're trying to learn each other, when you're slowly unwrapping the layers to reveal something increasingly beautiful.  Each bit of dialogue is something to be remembered and savoured and thought about later on and the talks stack on top of one another, becoming a scaffold for all the things you've survived.  

Here, it's different, guarded, careful.  It's hard to find someone who actually wants to move beyond a couple of lines about where they come from or what they do for a living and the few times that I've attempted to talk about random things that I enjoy or something out of the ordinary, I haven't been greeted with much enthusiasm.  I can't figure out if it's just the people I've been talking to, or if everyone online is equally disinterested.   

I'm trying my best not to write online dating off too quickly and just participate in the process.  Amanda has told me that I should just treat it as something that's happening on the side of my life, which, if it works, great.  If it doesn't, I can just let it slide away.  This, I can do.

At any rate, I'm busy enjoying my friends, family, time alone and time spent on hobbies.  And we have plenty of wonderful conversations and discussions between us.

I'm not so sure about love online, but my faith in communication is not going anywhere.