Perils of On-Line Dating

There was a time in my life when I wasn't quite comfortable with being single. Being an honest-to-goodness uber-geek, I never had a boyfriend until I was 19. But after the first one, the young men kept on coming, one after the last, even though I didn't intentionally go out and hunt (!) for men the minute I turned single. It was an odd sequence of events that was envied by my best friend, who had trouble finding a single relationship, while the men I dated, however loser-ly they were, wanted to commit to a relationship with yours truly. Was it a good thing? I am not so sure.

Dating men who were, for the most part, much inferior than myself definitely boosted my self-confidence to a certain extent. They made me feel wanted and beautiful, and I hung out with their equally un-cool friends. Among a sea of people with an extremely low hotness factor, I was a definitely a hottie. Being a hottie (reminder: everything is relative) made me feel great for a while, but then I realized that I wanted to be with better guys who weren't so... so... mediocre (to put it mildly). Of course that goes back into my ideal man thing, so I won't go into too much detail on what made them mediocre -- I'll eventually have to sum up that post sometime.

My last boyfriend was in 2001. Towards the end of 2001, I broke up with my then-boyfriend for the third and final time. It was right on time, and I started 2002 fresh. I had a few opportunities to date a few young gentlemen, but I had decided to raise the level of standard. I am intelligent. I speak good and darn proper English. I can write coherently. I appreciate a vast variety of music. I am tolerant -- i.e. I am not a racist, I am not homophobic, etc.. I read the news and keep up with current events. I am a well-rounded individual, although there is a small, very minor dent in sports (i.e. I don't know all the members of the Los Angeles Lakers). I honestly believe that I deserve a man who is equally intelligent, who's not a slob, who functions like a human being, who is independent (i.e. doesn't ask mom for everyday-wardrobe help, although the occasional assistance would be tolerable). I don't want to get into that ideal thing again, but so I have declined the few men that chance threw my way.

Being single sucked. At least during that time. I wanted to meet quality men, but they seemed non-existant. After much groaning, I came across a place where you can place your very own personal ad on a website. You can also browse through other people's ads, view photos, send e-mails, and so on. I am quite sure all of you know of these sites. Well, being a brave pioneer (of course then I realized that there were literally a gazillion people on these websites before I even found it a possibility) I signed up and posted my info/stats. Although there were a few scary individuals (Thanks to those who sent e-mails saying "Hi. I think
your hot. Wanna get together for a threesome?" Sorry I never responded -- I don't respond to people who generally cannot/cares not write with correct grammar/spelling --just a pet peeve, no offense) I eventually started exchanging e-mails with a young man, who was intelligent, currently in grad school, read Dostoyevsky, and yet did not have the appearance of Shrek, nor the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

After a few e-mails, however, I realized that this young man, is out of my league. I hate that phrase. But I had to recognize that fact. He was doing graduate studies in some science (let's just call it rocket science) and I was a nothing, compared to him. I'm not saying degrees or numbers say anything, but I just lived day to day and had no accomplishments. My nursing career has been in the "getting started mode" for years. My plans to go to med school are getting delayed year after year. I felt ashamed, but not so much in a negative way.

I want to share my life with great people. Whether they are a car salesman, a professor, a disc jockey, a starving doctorate student, they must have passions and hopes. They want to be in a constant "I want to improve my life" mode. Because that is my own modus operandi. They have to study, whether it be reading fiction, reading the news, learning a new language, a new instrument, trying to keep a gold fish alive for more than a week (because that is really really hard to do, believe me I've tried!). They have to have the mentality of conquering new things and along with it, the desire and the passion to do it. So in short, I decided that I must become that person first, before I can start looking for that special someone. I must be someone who satisfies my wants. I can't be a fat loser and expect a brilliant-compassionate-opposite-of-loser to like me.

So again, I have drifted from my topic a bit. My post on that dating website has been left, unintentionally. I received an e-mail from a guy, introducing himself. I logged in and found that my profile had been seen 480 times, and this man had sent me an e-mail. He seems interesting, but doesn't seem to fit my bill. His profile seemed harmless enough, but some stuff in his e-mail has alarmed me just a tad bit. I know I am very very nit-picky about little things, and perhaps I am reading too much into it. He wrote an e-mail. In approximately 24 hours, he sent me another e-mail saying that he was wondering, because he hadn't heard from me in "a few days." (It took a while for me to compose the responding e-mail) I checked the date stamps on his e-mails -- Exactly 23 hours 57 minutes and 51 seconds had elapsed. The fact that he would write that -- although it was just that one line -- kind of put me in a higher alarmed mode, kind of like the homeland security terror threat level thing. It just went from a yellow to orange -- from a mild state of awareness (of psychos) to a rather intense state of paranoia. There were a few other things that kind of alerted me.

So what exactly are the perils of on-line dating? Should I just cross it off my list? I am much more in favor of meeting people the "normal" way. Through work, through school, through friends, through friend's roomate's friend's cousins, etc.. Ultimately, I will go back into dating hybernation, because I faced the reality that my mind has started to venture into this whole situation because I haven't kept myself busy. I start school in a week and half, I still have 30+ hours of work per week, along with 15 units of school! I have to continue my plan to run three times a week minimum and waking up earlier to fit in half an hour of pilates. I have to refresh my memory of Japanese that I had learned, and I have to crack open that clarinet case if I ever want to be able to play "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" or at least "Hot Cross Buns!" And I have to make time to blog. Even when my best friend was in town for three weeks or so, I slacked on my blogging. So I have avoided the perils of on-line dating -- I won this round. But would I be so lucky the next?