January 23, 2021

Online Dating

mercy ME.

I’ve gone on a total of 4.3 dates through an online source, and I don’t really even count the first two, because they both happened through friends of friends of friends on Friendster, a site that I wasn’t advertising myself on as eligible. The Friendster dates both happened while I was living in San Francisco. I’ve never been asked out on Friendster in New York, which only confirms my theory that when you aren’t from a place, or don’t know a lot of people, single males want to know you more and better.

Anyway, the first date was nice, but dorky, and after realizing that I wasn’t attracted to him and he couldn’t change that, I downed a couple of drinks and enjoyed a free meal. The other date was worse. He was cheap, late and totally out of gas. As if it wasn’t bad enough that he picked the bar to meet at and it happened to be very closed, as in boarded-up-closed, it was also raining hard, and he was hardly on time. I waited in my friends car for him to finally arrive, and anyone who knows me, knows I am an anal freak about being late. When I finally got into his small car, we only drove two blocks before it went dead. Yes DEAD. Apparently he didn’t understand that his car ran on gas, that it actually needed gas IN it to work, and so, when the gas light went on some time before we ever met, he didn’t think to do a damn thing about it. I helped him push the car across 16th Street and Valencia. Helped him move it to the side of the road, all the while getting wet (and not in that happy, excited kind of way) because I had no umbrella. When we finally pushed the car into a spot, okay, I didn’t get that wet, I mainly steered, but I like the high drama of pretending I pushed that car with all my might and I didn’t even have to admit that I didn’t actually push it, but I did (admit it) anyway…we still went for a drink, and I still tried to find some good qualities in this guy, after all, he wasn’t unattractive and it could have been a funny first date story. But his love for some famous aunt, I think she used to be on Dallas or some TV show like that, was all that this guy had going on in his life. And I couldn’t really like such a late, stupid boy.

The best part of the story happened after we finished hanging out, when he offered to drive me home. As this was San Francisco, and I preferred a quick ride over a slow bus journey, I said yes. Only catch was we had to first walk to the gas station three long blocks away to buy a gallon of gas. We actually went to the gas station, purchased one of those plastic containers and then brought it back to the car in the rain. When we got back to the rotting piece of tin, it turned out that the gas guzzle, or whatever it’s called, didn’t fit into his gas tank. Needless to say, I wound up taking the bus and he had his own, personal, long days journey into night.

In New York I actually looked for online dates by placing an ad on Nerve.com. I got some bite, and I knew that if I wanted to date seriously, I had to take the bait. My first date was a girl. She was cute, bi and she asked me out. She was shoulder length brown hair and a brain but she sounded too much like I did. We practically had the same voice, and since we knew the same people, I found it a bit disturbing. We never spoke again. She did look like her picture though, and that had me thinking that not everybody lies.

Then I asked some guy out because he had gone to Burning Man that year. I thought that we’d click. Well, he was cool, but we didn’t click. Plus he looked a little different than his picture. Not as attractive and older (not that older is necessarily a bad thing). We met that one time and that was that.

The .03 happened when I went to a bar to meet a hottie (well, at least his picture was hot) and he didn’t show up after 45 minutes. So I waited around a bit, wrote in my journal and eventually left. He emailed and said he was there, but if he was later than 45 minutes, he didn’t stand a chance with an anal time freak like me anyway. Or maybe he just looked nothing like his picture?! Hmm…

And then I met Jonny. And I’ve stopped all other dating for now. And I can’t say I’m sad about that. Although remembering these stories definitely makes me smile.

Posted by jamye at January 23, 2021 07:07 PM