Running Into a Dead End

There's a lot of stuff in life that is scary - old graveyards (especially at night), the current state of finances in America, the looming cost of heating our homes this winter, the Presidential debates, and online dating ... which brings me to the topic of today's post!

Truth be told, I avoid online dating much like I do liver and onions, lifting heavy objects, and speaking to my ex-husband but every once in awhile curiosity gets the better of me - after all, I'm divorced and not dead though my love life certainly expired long ago - and I'll take a peek at who's out there. After all, rumor has it that a lot of people have met the love of their lives via online dating (just ask my ex) so who's to say that my own Prince Charming isn't out there with an ad plastered on Craigslist or Match.com or eHarmony? Maybe I need to put some effort into finding him rather than just waiting for him to find me? Perhaps he needs some help!

To that end I recently took a look at Craigslist ... and it was even scarier and more of a dead end than that old graveyard pictured at the top of this post! For example -

• ... looking to get together with a woman looking for a night of "its all about you baby"
• ... i like nice quit nights with my lady, soft music maybe a little wine cuddling allowed
• ... For my women i prefer athletic and toned to avergae, needs tobe fun and not oo uptight
• ... seeing if i can find a neddle in a hay stac
• ...I need a fine GIRL who knows it, slim, well maintained AND most of all must have a nice dairy air

You have got to be kidding me - this is what's out there? Guys, guys, guys - would it kill you to learn how to write? Maybe have someone spell-check it for you before you put it out there on the internet for all the world to see? Better yet, how about thinking about what it is you're saying ahead of time? I mean - what on earth is "wine cuddling"? What if I prefer to just drink it? Good luck to the guy trying to find a "neddle" and as far as the guy requiring the nice "dairy air" could he possibly have meant derrière or does the woman he's looking for need to smell like a barn??

I know that Mimi Lenox has a whole blog dedicated to online dating sights and the goofs who use them at Dating Profile of the Day but every once in awhile I just have to look for myself as, truth be told, it gets kind of old being alone all the time and some male companionship would be fantastic however ... I've just got to ask - where have all the good men gone?? And don't any of them know proper grammar and spelling??

Perhaps I'm just too picky but maybe being single isn't so bad after all! With my luck my White Knight would call himself a wite nite or something worse!

"Another Saturday Night & I Ain't Got Nobody ..."

After returning home yesterday evening from taking the girls down to the mall and torturing myself with the aromatic smells of coffee at Seattle's Best while blogging at Borders, I had some free time online because I had caught up with all of my regular reads and there was no one on to play Scrabulous with. What to do? What to do? I know! I'll sign up for this free dating site that I had heard about and see what's who's out there.

Having paid good money to be rejected on eHarmony.com, Match.com, and even Yahoo! Personals in the past, I have a major aversion to shelling out cash for dating sites as I just don't think a person should pay for feeling like the last person picked for the kickball team during gym! DateHookup.com is a 100% free dating site that has a chat feature, forums, dating ideas (like I need an idea - what I need is a date!), and a pretty easy to use search function. Of course the thing that appealed the most to me is that it's FREE! Free is a good thing in my book, a very good thing!

So, I set up a profile with some basic information (ah yes, the dreaded "body type" question - I hate that question!!), tossed on a semi-decent picture (at least for me), and proceeded to see who was available in my neck of the woods. Surprisingly, there were quite a few guys in my area - even some right here in Norwich - but I'm not the type to initiate first contact as I always hear my mother's voice ringing through my head saying "nice girls don't call boys". I guess that means nice girls don't wink at boys on dating sites either! Still, it was nice to see that there are men my age out there who are also looking for "the one". Considering that Prince Charming has obviously lost his way to my house, I guess I have to start somewhere, right??

I played around with it for a little while and then called it a night to go upstairs and watch the end of Spiderman 2 (ah, Toby Maguire battling it out with Alfred Molina!). Imagine my surprise when I checked my email this morning and found that someone had actually winked at me - me! Too bad the guy lives in Fargo, North Dakota but hey - a wink is a wink and that's one more wink then I've had in a long time!

Hmm, reminds me of a mutilated line from Casablanca - "here's winking at you, kid!" I'll let you know if anymore winks come my way!

The Saturday Comeback Challenge Kid

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It is with a great deal of pleasure and delight, as well as extreme humility and not a smidgen of hubris, that I can announce – I WON! I WON! I WON! And for women everywhere let me just say, it’s about dang time!!!

What exactly is it that has me doing the “end zone happy dance”? What could possibly inspire me to set the laptop aside, jump up off the couch, and pump my fist in the air triumphantly? Well … glad you asked! For the first time in a long time, I managed to win first place in Mimi Lenox’s Saturday Comeback Challenge at Dating Profiles of the Day! WOOHOO!!!

Even though the contest is based on poorly written personal ads by men, it seems that every week the contest is won by a man. I have yet to figure this out as it just strikes me as funny – in the odd sort of use of the word – that men have snappier comebacks to other men than women do. The only reason I can think of for this phenomena is that men are so used to hearing women make snide comments when they themselves make a stupid statement that it has become second nature for them to be able to answer their own stupid statement with the exact snarky comeback that a woman would make. Does that make sense to anyone else besides me?

To put it another way – when men get shot down enough, they probably already know most of the comebacks they’re going to get shot down with. It’s sort of like when you’re paper training a puppy; after he has been chastised enough times for peeing on the floor, he catches on that if he pees on the newspaper laid out for him or, better yet, scratches at the door to go outside instead that he gets rewarded rather than scolded. Hmm, in rereading that, maybe that doesn’t make as much sense as I thought it did but I went to all the trouble of typing it so I’m going to leave it there.

This week’s Comeback Challenge also showed a female taking over the third place spot in the form of Katherine of Wading Through My Stream of Consciousness (and she didn't even get bleeped this week either!) while the ever witty and very snide Bud Weiser of WTIT The Tape Radio Blog claimed the second place spot. Even with Mr. Weiser sandwiched between us and putting up a valiant fight, it was the week for girls to rule! Oooo-rah!!

If you’d like to play along, Mimi posts the questions on Saturday and you have until midnight on Monday to email them into her. She judges the entries using a new system, so as not to accidentally play favorites, and announces the winners on Tuesday at Dating Profile of the Day. If you win you get a spiffy badge like the one I have below to post on your sidebar to tell the world that you have what it takes to be the snarkiest on the block. Just make sure you mark on your email really, really well that what you're sending is the entry answers or they might accidentally get deleted, right, Mims?

So what are you waiting for? Come on and play – you know you want to!

"Isn't there a white knight upon a fiery steed? Late at night I toss and turn and dream of what I need." ~ Bonnie Tyler, Holding out For a Hero

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First and foremost, let me throw a disclaimer out here that the title of this post does not reflect the state of my own nights. Yes, I toss and turn on a regular basis but that's more of an effort to get comfortable rather than worrying about the fact that I am currently "man-less" in my life and scheming as to where, o' where, I might be able to find one.

Truth be told, I don't think about finding the "right" man that much these days (which brings to mind the song "Wasted Days and Wasted Nights"!) but the topic of on-line dating - specifically eHarmony.com - came up in the context of a conversation earlier today with my good friend, Cyndi, from out in the great State of "a lot colder than we have been here in Connecticut this winter" California.

Cyndi has a favorite cousin who called her this morning looking for help in writing a profile for eHarmony. Cyndi and Deanna have a lot in common but that doesn't include writing abilities so I can fully understand Deanna appealing to Cyndi for help as the woman has quite a way with a turn of a phrase. If you folks want to see someone kick some butt in the Saturday Comeback Challenge, I'll have to invite MizCyn on over!

That said, Deanna has decided that the time has come to make her third venture into the wonderful world of men. As they like to say "third time is charm" and Deanna is trying to put the failure of two past marriages firmly behind her as she boldly goes where no woman over the age of 40 wants to boldly go and that's dating. Trust me on this, I know that of which I speak!

Although recently Newsweek was forced to swallow a big mouthful of wedding cake after the 1986 article that stated that "a single woman over the age of 40 had a better chance of being killed by a terrorist" than getting married, one has to wonder what the odds are of a twice-divorced woman rapidly reaching the age of 50 are? Could the odds be better than being mauled by a white tiger while celebrating New Year's Eve in Times Square or being K.O.'d by glacial ice while sipping wine on the deck of an Alaskan cruise or might they be closer to running into Elvis at the local Burger King ordering up a Quadruple Stacker and onion rings?

No doubt eHarmony has worked for some people (my ex-husband himself being one of the success stories) and recently Consumer Reports gave it a decent review in the December 2006 issue but I have my own personal doubts because, truth be told, I've actually tried this - not once mind you - but twice. The first time was because I was curious (hey! it worked for the ex!) and the second time was because I was given a gift subscription for my birthday from my good friend in California!

Why it didn't work for me was probably based on several factors; first and foremost being the fact that I wasn't looking to move to Alaska or the wilds of Wyoming to find Mr. Right (come on now, can't he be somewhere in Connecticut or the surrounding area??) The second reason, as my good friend MizCyn likes to point out, is that I don't do well going outside of my comfort zone - and she's probably right! Stodgy New Englander that I am, I'm not all that adventurous despite my having lived in Calfornia for a good 8 years. Unlike the love of Mexican food that I acquired, I was not able to adopt a sense of the carefree abandon that so many Native Californians not only have but flaunt on a regular basis!

That said, Deanna is - in fact - a Californian and this might work for her especially if Cyndi applies the wit and wisdom that I know she possesses in regards to men - hence the success of her 35-year marriage to her third husband (like I said, third time can be charm!). Now lest you think that Cyndi's 35-year marriage is possessed by a woman who is pushing 95, think again! She's only five years older than I am as far as physical age goes but far surpasses me in the age of wisdom - at least when it comes to men. It seems I have a bad habit of choosing poorly. Who knows? Maybe I would have had better success with eHarmony if I had Cyndi writing my profile rather than doing it myself?

The problem I have with on-line dating, and not just eHarmony, is that I have always subscribed to the belief that a person can be ANYONE they want to be on the computer. A person can be the equivalent of Johnny Depp or Annette Bening when they're sitting on the opposite side of a keyboard but how do you know what they're really like until you meet them face-to-face? Matching two people on twenty-nine personality points doesn't exactly guarantee chemistry when you finally meet someone no matter how many you match on. Sure, it's a start but that's all it is - a start - just like any other blind date out there.

I guess my biggest aversion to on-line dating is that I don't need rejection on a wide-scale basis and that's the only thing it has ever seemed to offer me. It doesn't matter how witty or intelligent or sincere I come across in my profile; most guys take one look at my picture or the fact that I am past the age of bearing them an heir to carry on their family name and they skip right over me looking for a 20-year old Playmate who will look mighty-fine hanging on their arm and every word. Even if I were brave enough to try on-line dating for a third time and let MizCyn write my profile, I just get the feeling it wouldn't turn out any differently than it has in the past. Call me a chicken but I guess I'd rather save my money and my feelings.

As for Deanna, I wish her the best of luck in her search for the right guy and I hope that she is able to find someone who makes her as happy as Cyndi and her husband are together so that they can have something additional in common.

So what about you folks? Anyone else have any thoughts about on-line dating, any success stories, any advice that Cyndi can offer to Deanna to put in her profile that might increase the odds of her appearing on an eHarmony.com commercial in the future? And don't ask me to ask the ex - please!