2011 has been pretty damned intense and I have to admit that I won't be sorry to see it pass. After spending much of it dealing with some rather significant life issues (my mother's prolonged illness and death, my divorce becoming final, workplace drama and the cancellation of the new
Charlie's Angels) I decided it was time to get up off the canvas and return to the land of the living.
About a month ago I took the plunge and decided to try online dating. Why not avail myself of a golden opportunity to meet intriguing new people, allow the law of large numbers to work in my favor and--who knows, if the stars and planets aligned
just so--maybe meet a potential "special someone."
After being in the pond for about a month I came to realize that there were a few Online Dating Universals (ODU's.) First of all, if you don't have full-body orgasms at the mere
thought of long walks on the beach then you'd best resign yourself right now to a life of soul-crushing loneliness culminating in a trip to the Soylent Green production facility.
Ditto for cuddling by the fireplace. I guess it's what beach walkers do in the winter. Since I don't have a fireplace in my apartment I suppose I'll have to resort to arson to make myself fit for polite society.
Talk about low hanging fruit! Who
doesn't enjoy a nice walk on the beach or a cozy fire every now and again? If cliches like these top your list of life's passions then I'd hate to know what you'd consider to be life's more mundane pleasures. Breathing? Grocery shopping? Turning right on red?
Next are the de rigueur admonitions against "playing games." And to think I was
this close to reaching out to BluEydJurzeeGrl36DD with an offer of pleasant conversation and Parcheesi. I'm not exactly sure what playing games refers to but it seems to be a disease of pandemic proportions and a sin committed solely by men to intentionally confuse women to the point where they'll collapse naked into their beds. I don't know what the answer is. A telethon, maybe? I hear Jerry Lewis has some free time on his hands these days.
Then there's the traveling. The incessant, incessant traveling. Where the hell
do
these women find the time and resources to do so damned much traveling? And if their lives are so enriched by their passports then why are so many of them online posting blurry cell-phone kissy-faced cleavage shots from their bathroom mirrors? Very classy, ladies. I'm sure you'll be thrilled to know that your meticulously crafted profile pix are being used as masturbation fodder by the likes of WellHungInNewark and RogueJedi1966.
I'd love to spend untold months traveling but I get a whopping two weeks of vacation a year and my salary is more Poland Spring than Perrier. Day trips and the occasional quickie getaway to the shore? Count me in. But extended jaunts to exotic locales just aren't part of my universe. It's amazing how even the most vapid, sleep-inducing profiles are so often penned by women who seem to live the life of a
National Geographic photographer. I guess the call of fireplaces in foreign lands is simply too much to resist.
These are just the tip of the iceberg. As I spend more time ignoring cyber winks and tallying the number of times I come across the word "soulmate" I'll try to remember to come back and add more ODU's to the list. But for now these'll have to do.
Don't get me wrong. Online dating really
can be a great way of getting two people into the same room but only if you're realistic about your expectations and have an honest sense of who you are. There are plenty of good, decent people out there but you're going to have to wade through a vast multitude of chromosomally challenged mouth-breathers in order to find the ones worth so much as a cup of coffee.
If you're not prepared to do a lot of patient sifting then you're asking for trouble and might as well resign yourself to looking for love in the produce aisle. After all, who doesn't love a good melon thumping?
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| HungLuvr69...he's waiting for you |
