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Online dating has changed since I first tried it 10 years ago. When I started, there were a lot more men than women. Dating was fun, and if you didn't hook up with someone for a while, you at least made friends. I remember talking late into the night about Margaret Thatcher and Ireland, going on silly dates to the paint-your-own-pottery place, and dancing with the only straight guy in a gay club. Maybe it's because we were all 20-something nerds, but everyone seemed decent and clean and just fun.

Something shifted as online dating became more popular. I started uncovering more liars, more married men, more flat-out assholes. I met a serial Internet-dater who thought appropriate first-date conversation was to tell me about the Excel spreadsheet he kept of his sexual experiences with over 100 women.

Now that I consider it, that was great first date conversation. I knew right away I didn't want to see him again.

One fellah didn't even make it to a date because in his first e-mail he told me I was going to have to get rid of my cat. Another guy broke the ice by asking if I shaved my pubis.

The Internet was supposed to make a meeting of minds possible, with a focus on content and personality. But online dating has turned out to emphasize the shallower aspects of the human mating dance. It's a marketplace now, and you must meet your "customer's" checklist of requirements as if you were a house, a car, or some other product with fixed specifications: you must be the exact height and weight they want; have the proper advanced degree; exhibit an unfailingly chipper, positive attitude; possess a willingness to have butt sex. Searching by superficialities is okay, I suppose, if that's your game, but it's not so hot for those of us (okay, me) who are sincere in our attempts to make meaningful connections with actual complex, mutable human beings. It took me quite a while to come to the understanding that it is, really, just a huge online role-playing game.

For me, the death knell rang for online dating after I moved to the third circle of dating Hell, printed on the maps as "Ann Arbor." I hung on for a few disasters and then took down my profiles from the two sites I had been using.

That was over a year ago. My accounts were still there, my winks and smiles and IM credits gathering virtual dust. Finally, this weekend, I just felt tired after opening another one of the increasingly porntastic e-mails they've continued to send me. I sent a reply to one site, informing them that pictures of other women's asses do not induce me to spend money, and I went in and totally, irrevocably blew my dormant accounts away.

Can I tell you how glad I am to be completely off that merry-go-round?

So good luck out there, George_Canton and Birdwatcher25. Have fun and be safe, DJ4LUV. And DaveAnonymous, you need to put the spreadsheet away and find a man.

Breakfast table

If I hadn’t

had a Russian Cabbage Patch doll
liked literature
stayed in touch with friends
dropped out of grad school
stayed in that apartment
cracked a bad joke
learned the yellow-rumped warbler’s name
read a book on particle physics
bought a pin-striped suit
been abandoned
decided to forgive you

If I had

converted to Judaism
married that medical student
gone back home
taught English in Hungary
hated Les Miserables
listened to my parents
liked Phoenix
started a successful soap-making business
held onto my anger
let you scare me
blocked your e-mail

I wouldn’t be

scrambling these eggs for you

The Perils of Long-Distance Dating

Ohio Turnpike rest stop, mile marker 100.

The Shape of Love

It's Just a $1500 Lunch

Okay, I shoulda known better. I should have done my homework. Even as I typed my information into the form at the It’s Just Lunch Web site, fear of the hard sell prickled at the back of my neck.

For those who may not know, It’s Just Lunch markets itself as a matchmaking and dating service for “busy professionals.” The first thing I noticed about the Ann Arbor IJL site was that the photo of the Kerrytown farmers’ market was flipped so the words on the silo were mirror-imaged. The second thing I noticed was a lack of a fee structure. But I figured I’d have the opportunity to ask soon.

Really soon. An e-mail arrived immediately and my answering machine picked up a message soon after that. I got another e-mail and another phone call the next day. Today, day three, brought another phone message. Since I had some time off in the afternoon, I called IJL.

She asked me where I heard about them. She told me a bit about their interview and matching process. Somewhere in there she intoned solemnly, “Women aren’t used to spending money for dates. But we do spend a lot of time on the wrong guys. Guys on the other hand feel like they spend a lot of money on dates, but don’t necessarily get what they want out of it.”

What kind of weird, Chick-Lit platitudinous shit is this?

She stated she was thrilled to have the opportunity to tell me about her clients: very busy doctors, “professionals,” and “educators” who don’t want to date someone from work, aren’t into the bar scene, and just don’t have time to meet someone for dating.

She was evidently looking at my info. “Ooh, you’re young,” she cooed.
My lip curled. “What’s that mean?” I asked. “Are all your clients over 50?”
“I just mean you’re younger than me,” she said.
Ah.

She continued by asking me about what I’m looking for. Straight off, I told her income is not one of my criteria. Absolutely no smokers. Integrity, curiosity, sense of humor are desirable.

“Height, weight?” she prompted.
I paused. “Doesn’t really matter,” I started to form a picture of what her clients might be like.
“Anything like race or religion?” A phone rang in the background.
“Race isn’t an issue. I’m tolerant, but not particularly religious, so if that’s important for somebody, I’m not going to be a good match for him.”

Then she prattled about how 80% of her clients have degrees, how many first dates “become” second dates, and how horrible it is to be single. “When you’re single, Saturday comes along, and there you are wondering what to do, home alone with your cat or dog.” My left eyebrow shot up as she continued, a little more hushed, like it was shameful, “I know, I used to be single. ‘Don’t you ever leave me,’ my husband says. Ha ha ha.”

Uh, yeah.
One semester I had a four-hour class on Saturday.
Saturday is for doing homework and designing ads and going to the farmers' market and scrubbing the bathtub and getting work done on my second job. Most weekends, the cat would be really happy if I had an hour to play with her.

I didn’t exactly cry alone while downing a quart of ice cream this past Saturday either - I watched Michigan’s football team wipe Notre Dame’s field with Brady Quinn’s helmet. Law School P. was on my couch. We ate a pot of vegetarian chili and drank the Sierra Nevada Pale Ale he brought over. While Law School P. is, admittedly, not my boyfriend, he is a friend I’ve known for over a year, and someone I met through a free ad on frickin’ Craigslist, of all places.

“Is anything like race or religion important to you?” IJL lady asked, repeating an earlier question. Was she not listening?
My Turtle totem took over and the plastron started to close. “No.”

She rushed through the subscription rates: $1500 for a year - this supposedly gets you 14 dates. A six-month subscription is $1100. I can buy 137 bottles of Fin du Monde for that.

I told her I worked at a non-profit and couldn’t afford it. I got the response I pretty much expected - it’s so much better than combing through Internet dating sites! And isn’t love worth any price?

She repeated the statement about women not being used to paying for dates. I sputtered something about paying for clothes and make-up and oh, like, half the check as often as not. Although Aussie Paul did have to buy his own plane tickets.
“Kim, you need come in here and let me give you some tips. Get those guys to pay up!”

Turtle's shell snapped shut.

I regret having told her as much as I did. Plus, it was a waste of 15 cell phone minutes. But if I ever decide I want to be pressured into a date with a rich sucker who has no time to spare for a relationship, I’ll know where to call.

Hey Plotinus

I know you're reading this.

This is Evidently Me in a Relationship

Gazin' at the sky, pickin' pretty posies, and steppin' off some dang cliff.

It's not the first time.

A lesson will be repeated until learned.

At least I'm taking the yappy little white dog down with me.

If He Hangs Up on Me

Does that mean we broke up?

The sloppy kissing was corrected. I was figuring out his quirks. I was having fun, making plans to introduce him to friends. But I guess I ask for too much (I want him to say something other than, "Oh well" when something bad happens with my work) and I'm demanding (I want to be asked about my work in the first place) and I'm unfair to him (I occassionally want him to drive, which he has done all of twice in the last four months) and I really get on his nerves.

Really? I did not know that. What have I been doing that's been getting on his nerves? Cooking him food that he's too cheap to buy for himself? Being the Ann Arbor-Chelsea shuttle for our sleep-overs? Attending his lectures? Listening to him yammer about baseball, which I do not give two shits about, but I'm listening to him because, you know, I like him?

The first time I heard that I get on his nerves was tonight, right before his words became a handful of marbles flung down a flight of stairs, a cascade of accusations, "Sorrys," "Can't do this," "Been here befores," tumbling over each other. Right before the *click*.

Now, I am not blind to my own failings. I can be moody, irrational, melodramatic, and judgmental. I am easily bored and tend to wander off. I get frustrated when I don't get my way. When I realize I have done one of these things, whether I have been called on it or come to my senses on my own, I apologize. I'm working on it.

We are all a work in progress.

Our personalities are such that I've been wondering how long a term this thing might be. But I never figured him for one to hang up and cut communication like that. I can understand him being upset. I can understand being gun-shy; I don't know what happened to him before. And I want to know. I want to know his stories, his experiences, what he's wanting from his life, from a relationship. It seems that expecting the same level of interest and regard from him in return is expecting too much. No matter what happens between us from here on out, that *click* will always be there.

Redemption

The Valentine redeemed himself. The chocolates out of the heart-shaped box are very nice. I could do without the stuffed bear and the lip-shaped strawberry lollipops, but I'm not going to rag on him too much. He claims they were not the first things he spotted on sale at CVS on Tuesday at midnight.

He really made good with the offer of cooking dinner at my place Friday night, complete with his family recipe for pasta sauce. Says he has to stir it for two hours. Maybe I should make him wear the French maid outfit (kidding!).

Hear That Ringing? It's the Clue Phone

And my Valentine's Day "date" (whom I am actually meeting up with tomorrow) might want to answer it. Actual line of dialogue from this evening's telephone conversation:

"I'm not obligated to buy anything, am I? Because flowers are, like, ridiculously expensive."

Note to self: Reconsider feasibility study of "date" becoming "boyfriend."

Waiting for the Hawkwatcher

Somewhere south of Toledo
a truck, held together by politically liberal bumper stickers,
heads for Michigan
carrying to me this evening’s guest
a man I have never met
never seen
but I’ve heard his soft tenor voice
and he can tell the Cooper’s from the sharp-shinned
the merlin from the kestrel
and by the time he gets here
it will be February.

Note to the Gentlemen

The kissing, it is the important.

The kissing, it is the gate to the garden of the delights of the earth. Do the kissing well and the gate, she will be the open to you. Make the mouth of the carp with the drool, and the carp, he will be looking at the garden from the fence behind.

La bella donna, she is not made of the nougat, and should not be chewed upon as if the Snickers bar. Also, if you have the growth of the whiskers, apply the moisturizer, please, even if you think it is the gay. La bella donna then will not feel like the face has been scoured with the brush of the wire of copper.

The kissing, it can be the delicate subject for the conversation. Be aware for the cues of the subtle. If la bella donna, she sighs and squeezes you, the kissing, it is the good. If la bella donna, she asks for the towel, you may be making the mouth of the carp.

What makes the kissing good? When the kissing is on the mouth, the lips should press against the lips that are hers; do not suction la bella donna’s face from the nose to the chin (this is the mouth of the carp). Go slowly; it really is not the game of the ball of the bases. The tongue, it should practice the give and the take. La bella donna, she has the soft hair and the skin and she would like for you to touch gently. Mostly, just relax.

And yes, it is okay to peek.

That is all.

Snow

Thoughts of you.

Kim's Online Dating Tips

• If you say you are educated, be sure you spell “educated” correctly, or at least come close.


• Do not refer to the “stigma of meeting online.”


• Do crop your main photo so only you are in it. Do not simply cut your ex’s head out of the picture, leaving her body hanging by its hand from your shoulder.


• Choose a nickname that does not include the number 69. “NoCreditsNoClue” isn’t a good one either.


• The suggestions offered on the site to help with writing your headline are...suggestions. If you copy and paste one into your headline, you have the same headline as the thirty other guys who just did the same thing.


• If you state you are 25 and you last updated your profile on August 10, 2000, you are 29 or 30 now. Time to freshen that up, bud.

Got one of your own? Leave a comment...

A Simple Plan

K. dumped me on Monday. He’s been acting cranky for weeks, but he didn’t say it was anything about us, so I didn’t think (too much) that it was us making him cranky. “I’m tired of relationships,” he said. Well, I get tired of relationships too, but I rarely cut them off once they’re started. I continue to try, although sometimes too hard or for too long. I’m human. It’s what I do.

So my personals ad is back up on that Internet dating site. After several months' absence, I had forgotten how annoying so much of it is. It’s annoying to carefully craft a profile, only to have it completely disregarded by men I have nothing in common with and who are 10 years over my stated age range, but who figure they’ll give it a shot and contact me, repeatedly, anyway. It’s annoying to take the time to write thoughtful introductory e-mails and send them to what seem to be thoughtful, intelligent men, whose bills I seem to fit, only to have them ignore my heartfelt missives. At least I answer the senior citizens and tell them I’m looking for someone closer to my own age.

But the worst are the ones who instant message right off the bat.

“Hi,” Jaguar526 messaged me last night (not his real handle). “You put your 4'11. Are you really that short?”

“No,” I fired back, regretting the absence of a sarcasm point on my keyboard. “I added two inches to make myself seem even more imposing.” I mean, c’mon. Who lies that they’re not quite five feet tall?

“Really?” he replied. Yep, a sarcasm point would come in handy.
“No, I’m teasing. I really am that short.”
“You must like short men.”
“I like some of them. Some of them I don’t.” I finished paging through my search results on the dating section of the site, which are pretty much the same as my search results on the relationship section.
“What kind of man do you like?”
“Tall, dark, and handsome,” I wrote, even though 1) I know I’m not supposed to write in clichés and 2) I like tall, redheaded, and handsome too. I hadn’t looked at his profile yet, so I clicked on it.

Oops. He’s 5’2”.

“Heres my picture,” he typed. From the camera angle, it’s obviously a self-portrait. He’s not bad looking, with wisps of brown hair across his forehead, blue eyes, a cleft chin, and a crooked nose. He seems to be in a kitchen. “Do you like my picture?” he asked.

“Sure,” I replied. “You’re cute. And I see you like cereal.”
“Im J.,” he said.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Kim.”
“Im loanley.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Come have a drink with me.”
“You mean right now?” Uh-oh. There’s a feeling that I’ve already inadvertently encouraged him a little too much, just by answering him.
“Yes.”
“J., you live in Upper Sandusky. That’s in Ohio.”
“Its not far.”
“I’m in Michigan.”
“Its not far.”
“It’s too far for tonight.”
“Please come. Im loanley.”

I am torn between pity and loathing. I know what desperate loneliness feels like, like hanging onto a cold granite cliff by your split and bloody fingernails, and your chest is hollow and the wind is howling and the buzzards are circling overhead. I have frightened away good men with too-soon displays of saggy, pallid, naked need. And I know it’s not the way to go, because I have no more desire to get sucked into someone else’s need than they wanted to get pulled down into mine.

“I’m sorry,” I tell J. “I’m not going to have a drink with you tonight.”

Perhaps I take this all too seriously. Perhaps my problem is that I veer between treating it all like a joke and treating it all like the end of days.

Before I ended my online session, I read one gentleman's profile that did catch my eye. “Enjoy the Haiku” is his headline from Edmonton, Alberta:

Find the One, then leave.
It was such a simple plan,
but I am still here.

Marriage Proposal

I received a proposal of marriage, oh, about two months ago already. This was in earnest, despite the fact that I was proposed to over the Instant Messaging function of an Internet dating site.

I was an addict of said dating site off and on for about three years. Imagine a lab rat hitting a bar to receive a bit of cheese, and every once in a random while a crumb of cocaine. I logged in daily – no, that’s a lie – I logged in at least three times a day to make sure Prince Charming hadn’t sent me any free “smiles” or anted up the cash to send me an actual e-mail. Usually no one did. But one time I hit the bar and the most gorgeous visiting professor of philosophy popped out. Of course, there was also the time I received a miniature church organist, but it’s the rush of the philosopher I feel compelled to try to replicate.

Before work one morning, I logged on and the blue instant message light started blinking like a K-mart special. The spelling and grammar had a non-native speaker quality about them. “Wow,” he said (or typed). “You are so preety for me.” What unwashed Midwestern woman in flannel pajamas at 7:25 in the morning wouldn’t be flattered? His name is M., and he thinks I’m a nice “lday.” Suddenly I’m awake without my usual mug of weapons-grade black British tea. Hey, this could be the one.

Clicking on his profile, I saw that his idea of romance includes love poems and that he enjoys his pet in his spare time. Literate and likes animals – so far, so good. He has a university education. He is 30 years old, slim, and wants kids. Perfect!

He also “lives approximately 5,430 miles from your home,” in Lagos, Nigeria.

Maybe I should invest in a web cam. Maybe my twisted wire grimace would have deterred him from typing “r u married?”

Is there a right answer to this question? If I say “Yes” to dodge him, I’ll be accused of being among the 30% of people on Internet dating sites who are married. How about the truth? “No,” I typed.

Wrong answer. “i can marry u,” he volunteers. And leave warm, sunny Nigeria for Michigan, halfway to the North Pole? “No,” I typed, actually feeling guilty entering those two keystrokes. I was breaking up with him already and moving on.

“i can come.” Now I’m paralyzed. Why do I always get the tenacious ones?
“i can stay with u.” I don’t answer. I’m getting my socks out of the drawer.
“why no?” he finally typed.

Seconds tick off the clock. Why no, indeed? Why can’t love really be as easy as simply saying, “Yes?” Aren’t literature and history filled with couples drawn together in the strangest ways? Don’t we all know some happy pair, partnered for years, who went to get the marriage license on their third date? And isn’t this part of the allure of Internet dating, that the One is out there and all you need do is fill out the questionnaire and set your search criteria to have him or her delivered to your inbox, heralded by a flashing blue button?

I am unable to make the leap. I plop back into the chair and slay my virtual suitor by telling him we don’t know each other, and never will. I still check my account every once in a while, though I've pretty much weaned myself from the habit. M. is still out there, logging on, looking, and probably proposing to my downstairs neighbor right now.