The Beginning of Time and Internet Dating

I'm single. 

I know I'm single and that stalking Mr. Darcy does not count as a relationship. I'm only telling you this because a lot of people think I need a reminder. Your relationship status is not something you casually forget. (Unless you're my ex, but that's beside the point.) 

A fair amount of people have taken it upon themselves to help me find my next relationship, despite a lack of interest on my part. I'm even having dreams about friends throwing me under the dating bus. (You'll all be hearing from me regarding your dream behavior.) One suggestion I receive all the time is to try internet dating. 

No. I've probably talked about this before, but it's not for me. I read profiles and find things I hate and never feel the need to talk to anyone, let alone meet them. But that's not the only reason! Guess what? I've tried it. 

OkCupid launched ten years ago, and I tried it. I tried in in those first few months. I was the guinea pig for my friends, many of whom started their own profiles as a result of me not being murdered. We crafted my profile and wondered if anyone would contact me.  My profile said I was only looking for pen pals and I heard from guys all over the country/world. And you know what? I loved it. I would meet my friends for lunch and they would ask about the grad student and the comedian and the English pirate. (He wasn't really a pirate, but he was English. He looked like a favorite pirate of ours.) I was having some pretty awesome conversations with cute boys and it was wonderful. Occasionally I would get messages from local guys, which sucked because they always wanted to meet for dinner or invite me to their frat party after sending me one message. One guy asked if I wanted to meet to watch the sunrise and I laughed for fifty years because are you kidding me. I also had a local guy send me a few unsolicited, very graphic, disgusting poems he wrote about women masturbating, but I reported him. Mostly, my messages came from guys out of range. 

I think I stuck with that for maybe three years? I didn't use it much after the first couple years...I got bored. I think more people found out about it and joined and I found that the quality of men was decreasing. Near the end, I was getting more and more messages that read, "cool pic wana chat" and to be honest that didn't do much for me. Where were the English pirates and the stimulating conversations? These guys sucked. Fortunately by then Facebook was open to everyone**, so I actually kept in contact with a few of the guys I met on OkCupid and didn't feel bad when I deleted that profile. 

There you have it. I tried internet dating. The local guys were unimpressive and creepy. I didn't want to meet any of them for dinner. The interesting ones were far away. Please stop suggesting I try this, both in real life and also in my dreams. I'm tired of your disapproving looks. 



**I'm older than the internet. Of course I remember when OkCupid and Facebook started--or as we called it then, The Facebook.