parker’s desk

I don’t really make any big secret out of the fact that I’m on a pair of online dat­ing websites…while I pre­fer OkCupid.com the most, plentyoffish.com has a larger user base so I main­tain pro­files on both of the sites.  I have been for ten (almost eleven) months now off and on.

Peo­ple go to these sites for such a wide vari­ety of rea­sons that it’s a fool’s errand to try and pin it down to just one gen­eral thing.  Some are going on there for one night stands, some are going on there to not admit that’s all they actu­ally want.  Some want rela­tion­ships.  Some want friends.  Some have no damn clue what they want.  When I first started it after sep­a­rat­ing from my ex-wife it was all a lit­tle scary and over­whelm­ing, like stand­ing upon the precipice of a great abyss. 

I met far too many peo­ple too quickly with­out being care­ful, and while any good or funny sto­ries I have come from that time period I sure as hell don’t ever want to go back to that mess.  It’s a lot of effort, it’s pretty damn expen­sive when you’re a dude (being hon­est), and emo­tion­ally exhaust­ing if not numb­ing.  I can see how “play­ers” become play­ers, it’s like this rou­tine they just get down where they know what to say or what looks to give a girl (or guy) to get what result.  It was dis­gust­ing me not only that I was pick­ing up on all of these things, but that I was using them.  I didn’t like it, so I stepped away for a few months and started up again in July — albeit much, much slower and carefully. 

Picky, if you will.

I come to won­der now if it’s just too rare a thing to actu­ally meet some­one suc­cess­fully on there now.  I did online dat­ing before get­ting mar­ried, and had actu­ally met my ex-wife through online dat­ing — while our mar­riage didn’t end up mak­ing it, I did and still do think it was a suc­cess story in it’s own way.  Point being I know it’s pos­si­ble to meet some­one online that you can actu­ally click with on a roman­tic level.  What I won­der is if there is not some kind of step missed that just makes it more dif­fi­cult when you’re meet­ing some­one for the first time online rather than in person.

In per­son, you obvi­ously have that first bit of phys­i­cal attrac­tion avail­able at once.  A lot of peo­ple do not look like their pho­tos com­pared to in per­son.  Some­times for the bet­ter — lots of non-photogenic peo­ple out there — and some­times for the worst…people cheat­ing with cam­era angles or head­shots alone, old pics, etc.  It’s very rare that some­one actu­ally looks just like what you saw in the pic­tures though (could be, oh I dunno…the lack of depth per­cep­tion in a pic?), and so already you get a dif­fer­ent idea in your head that you are “bond­ing” with on some level.  Not weirdo stalker “I love you” bond­ing, but bond­ing to an idea of them that you are then fill­ing the blanks in on.  There is a lot of “fill­ing in the blanks” with online dat­ing, and it’s dan­ger­ous because the more blanks you fill — hear their voice and you get your own pic­ture of them — the harder it is to adjust to the real­ity of the per­son when you meet them.

Prob­lem for me is, I don’t actu­ally meet any girls.  No way in hell I’m get­ting into the bar scene ever again or club­bing, and even if I did I was never-ever the type to just go up to a girl and break the ice.  It’s the ice break­ing that kills it…online, the ice breaker is easy.  In per­son, not so much.  For me at least.  I’m sure some of that is car­ry­over from school, there were sev­eral girls I liked that back­fired pretty damn good on me (I even have a few as Face­book friends now, it never ceases to be an odd thing to me how times change).  Some may be lack of prac­tice.  Rest is just carry over of being shy?

So it’s a conun­drum.  Feel like my chances of actu­ally lik­ing someone/forming an inter­est are far greater in per­son.  Chances of me going up and just say­ing “hey, I’m Josh…wanna go out some­time?”  Slim to none.  But after nearly a year of the online dat­ing thing, clos­est I’ve come to find­ing some­one I’d con­sider dat­ing seri­ously lives too far away.  I’ve made a cou­ple of awe­some friends (though you moved to Seat­tle on me, Kate…you terd!) and don’t regret it, but I’m start­ing to ques­tion the point it try­ing with it.

I dunno.  I ram­ble on and on.  BEDTIME I say, bed­time.  G’night folks.

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