My Departure into the Abyss of Online Dating

So, I think enough time has past now for me to describe my sole experience with match.com. I joined this ridiculous service several weeks ago for the reasons I described in a previous post. My hopes were to find someone with relatively similar interest that had a similarly difficult time finding someone with said same similar interests. As luck would have it, there isn't a single person within 45 miles of Eugene that subscribes to this service with said like and dislikes, turn ons and turn offs, specified eyecolors, heights, negligible religious preferences, and drinking habits. I am apparently the only single person that likes the things I like.

Despite e-mailing 12 different women that sort of fit into the category of "my matches" I have had only 1 response. That one response was from a Costa Rican divorcee that likes her pug a bit too much and salsa dancing even more (I'm skeptical of people that like their pets a lot, and I find salsa dancing to be a chore...if we're going to sleep with each other lets just do it, no need to simulate the experience on a sweaty dance floor with miserable music in front of several other awkwardly "open to the experience" couples....too many pleated khaki pants on salsa dance floors if you ask me).

Anyway, the day i signed up, a seemingly darling minx holding a blowtorch "winked" at me. I decided to cut the virtual suggestions and sent her an email. We wrote back and forth a couple times, even had a 30 minute phone conversation before deciding to meet up for a drink.

She got there before me despite my being 5 minutes early. She sat at the bar. It was a pizza place. Much more of a restaurant than a bar (there were 7 stools, 5 facing the bar and 2 off to the side at an obtuse angle from where we ended up sitting). Upon my arrival, she seemed disappointed, the sort of look I imagine people give when they go to Hardees or Carl Jr.'s after seeing their commercials only to be given just another fast food burger that will inevitably give them heart burn, diarrhea, and low self esteem.

I tried all I could to engage, ENGAGE, her in conversation. It was one-sided to say the least. She gave me nothing but one-word answers to some of the most compelling questions uttered in the last decade. I gave her ridiculously fertile fodder to inquire about (while not seeming over-confident in the lest). I mean, come on! I save the world from environmental peril for a living. I just moved here from London, LONDON! My parents are Greek immigrants. I was in a mother effing band. I wear glasses. I tend to not eat meat. I paint portraits of historical thinkers. Give me a break. Seriously. Nothing? She says she's 29, but I speculate that she's much older. Either that or the threat of skin cancer never persuaded her to wear sun screen. She lives with her parents in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. Her car doesn't have AC (like, it's not broken, it was just built without it).

After 2 beers and a rather lovely conversation with the old couple sitting in the adjacent bit of the bar about the quality of McDonald's sundaes I decided it was time to ask for the bill. Did I mention she was missing a tooth? Yeah, a canine. Top left. One would think that she would strategically position herself so that I wouldn't notice it, but now, it was in my face (like, I could see it all night, it wasn't literally in my face, I would never get close to that thing...it could have been a bacterial infection or something....I don't need that).

When the bill came, I counted to 10 in my head. 1.....2......3.....4.....5.....6.....7.....8.....9.....10. Nothing. NOTHING! Not a hint of fiscal responsibility. She had to have known I was having a miserable time. By making no proactive gesture toward conversation I can't assume she was having a miserable time. I can just assume that she, in general, doesn't care about conversation (maybe she was just hoping to shack up with me.....I doubt it....not with that missing tooth....). Anyway, she was obviously not intending to pay for the wine she drank or the dessert she insisted on ordering (it was ice cream, not soft serve, the hard stuff, and I have sensitive teeth, I only had like a bite, maybe two).

All in all, I paid $40 to have an excuse to go home and get drunk as all hell from my own fridge. I would have rather spent $40 paying someone to make fun of my most vulnerable uncertainties than redo the experience. It was awful and I am furious at match.com for charging me to be able to participate in the event.

To top it off, the woman that is my "top match" has a profile picture with a gun. A handgun. This isn't, like, an ironic handgun. It isn't cute, like how Zooey Deschanel would look if she were holding a gun with her hip clothes and mother effing adorable eyes and aloof smirk. It's for real, like she's about to shoot her ex-husband for being short $5 on the alimony he left in mail box area of the trailer park.

I mean, after reading this, wouldn't you want to date me?