These days, Internet dating is about as taboo as fake boobs.
You can say they’re real, we’ll believe you. And you can say you met naturally, even though there are obvious holes in your “how we met” story. No metaphoric bump test coming from my direction. It’s an end-justifies-the-means situation once you’ve got ‘em, or him.
But if you’re one of the fortunate few still on the dating scene, I’d like to share a summation of my dating implant experience before you go under the knife in lieu of viable, natural options such as these:
a) Treating the grocery store like a club
b) Creeping around Barnes & Noble glaring at the left ring finger of every attractive candidate
c) Blind dates from hell
d) Schmoozing with type-A, “rawr rawr rawr, ME, ME, ME, I, I, I” over-zealous types, who mask their unbridled interests in money and success with the name “Young Professionals”
e) Compromising your exercise of choice to participate in the exercise of choice of attractive members of the sex you’re interested in (for men, yoga, for women, boxing)
f) Slamming beers and throwing out painfully tasteless pick up lines (or fake fishing hooks) at bars (on the dance floor)
Reading those either made you laugh, because you are now in a healthy, happy relationship that allows you to:
a) Slum to the grocery store in sweats (disregarding the well-accepted fact that public appearances in sweats mean you have given up on life)
b) Frequent the B&N only when you actually want to purchase a book
c) Go on boring dates and call them “the best night of your life”
d) Probably still deal with space cadets who don’t understand that not everyone can be an astronaut
e) Get fat
f) Drink socially (in order to not embarrass the signif other)
Or it motivated you to pick your poison, pour it in the appropriate drinking vessel and sink further into your couch.
Because while those bullets provoked laughter and nostalgia in the happily taken – to the front line soldiers – they were as amusing as a lame pickup line.
And after a year or so of limited luck with the aforementioned organic methods, your laughter may wane when you see the atypical results that flash in step with cheesy music on EHarmony and Match commercials.
Hell, you may even type the domain. You may even press enter.
When you do, you’ll likely be greeted by pictures of smokin’ hot potential lovers, who like you, “are tired of the bar scene.” They “don’t play games.”
“Maybe I’ll just fill out the info. See what they send me for free.” You think. Not yet ready to pay for a date to be delivered to your inbox. To admit that your game is so weak you need help from computers.
But in the next few days, while you scan the limited profiles of the potential soul mates who, conveniently enough, live within 10 or 25 miles of you, something else happens. You start to rationalize.
You purchase a month of membership. Just to try it out.
Buyer beware. Just as drunken dance moves don’t always transition to a lasting connection in the sober light, Internet dating profiles can often lead to real-life let downs. Only this time, you’re sober the whole way through.
I feel your pain. And after a year of hopping from site to site, this analogy sums up my experiences:
You made a better book than a movie
The profiles you’re reading, the pictures you’re seeing – are all well-orchestrated. These people paid $35 a month too.
Much was put into the development of the content, the selection of the images.
Fair game.
But as you scan through the images, reading and re-reading the profile, you create a narrative in your head. You piece together the emails, the self-summary, the pictures, creating a best-selling novel.
You probably brag about the quality of the literature. You share it with your friends. Encouraging them to read. So that when you see the movie, everyone will know what’s going on.
And that’s where things get tricky.
Just as with real life book-to-movie transitions, the book is often full of way more information than the movie can ever depict.
Further, what you envisioned when you read the book, was your own character mincing. Sure, you had pictures to go by. But when were those taken? From the hot, skinny college days? Or before the haircut?
I know, this is a doomsday write up. And no, not every guy I’ve been fed through online dating services has been a horrible movie adaptation. Some weren’t even good books to be honest.
But in the end, I’m still single. And I still love analogies. And to me, this one fits.
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