How long are you supposed to wait after a break up before you start trolling again? Everyone has a different answer, and they are all wrong. For me, given my tendency to hibernate with netflix, pills, and Jack Daniels, The way I see it, if I’m breathing, I’m ready.
It was a Friday, it was raining and I was bored. I was at home doing really important things like making a fake profile on Ok Cupid so I could cyber-stalk my exes. Tell me you've never done that? Like I said, I was ready.
I first needed to create a fake email and then wait for my fake membership confirmation. I didn’t want my fake person to not have a personality so I spent some time on her. I made ‘Jill’ out to seem like a nice girl. Very curvy. A bit younger than me. Much more hair. I gave her some hobbies. Some outdoorsy crap. You know, someone I would want my sister to date. Is that incestuous? Maybe just weird. When she was ready I put her up there, logged on, and looked around. Nope, not a single ex. Ok. I guess I didn’t care much. That was a good waste of an hour.
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| I asked for curvy and I got this chick, WTF? Okq |
I remember thinking, well, I’m back on this dating site, maybe I should try looking for someone I don’t already know! So Jill and I did. There is a search option for radius. This time no East Bay, no San Francisco. I’m not driving all over the damn state to go on a date anymore. Do I sound cynical? Maybe I was, but since I’d wrecked the Porsche and I’d recently run out of eccentric uncles with fancy convertibles to loan me, I figured I’d look closer to home. Besides, I knew I wasn’t going to find anyone anyway.
The thing I liked about the radius search was the idea that there is a circle full of available women out there and I am at its center. This is the sort of subliminal ego boosting shit that actually works on me. So I put in 100 yards. I’m lazy, and wouldn’t it be nice to walk to a date? I could totally play up the eco-groovy thing. You know, socks with sandals. It would be like Arcata all over again.
I was so surprised in the very first search to find a pretty girl. In fact her profile picture, a close up of her face, was just a bit too attractive. Like maybe she was hiding a really large girl just out of sight of the lens.
Hmmm, this best be investigated. Click. Wohaa! she is cute! And what is she holding in that picture... a shovel? Her profile had me laughing out-loud. It was littered with profanity. And damn she looks fucking hot in glasses, as in ‘Tina Fey gorgeous.’ This doesn’t happen. This can’t be right. I knew I needed to contact her right away. OH NO!! I can’t send her a message from Jill! I mean, what if she isn’t into 5’6” curvy women with long haired poodles? What if she is? There was only one solution. I needed to make ANOTHER profile. OH FUCKING CHRIST! So I did, after making another fake email, password.... yada yada yada.
Now
what do I say about me? How do I write an entire online dating profile
to be read by one person? And is that going to seem a bit stalker-ish? Yeah just a bit. But I needed her to know we have sooo much in common.
It took a bottle of wine and few hours to decide on the exact wording and which pictures to include. I briefly considered telling her about my tropical escapist fantasies. That didn’t go over so well before. I decided to keep it subtle.
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| This picture is filled with subliminal messages |
By midnight I was ready for final launch and to initiate contact. I’ve always known how important a first impression can be. I wanted to seem worldly but not creepy, so I made certain to mention my prison time, my love for foreign countries without extradition treaties, and in my first message to her I included the line, I made this entire profile just for YOU.
Her response came in just past 2 am. A good sign in my book. It was a rather unexpected, You’re going to have to prove that.
Shit. I was totally lying about... some parts of that. Now what? I grabbed a sharpie and quickly whipped out a suitable prison tattoo, snapped a pic, and sent it to her. This has got to work.
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| I felt this one showed strength without overshadowing my softer side |
We exchanged emails for a day or two. Her communication style and self-deprecating sense of humor put me at ease right away. I tried to impress her with a few jokes, bad idea. She returned suit with only one:
What does a lesbian bring to a second date? Like most things I don’t understand, I just ignored that one.
A bit reluctantly, I sent her a link to my blog. She sent me a link to hers. “A whole truckload of Amanda,” she said. And so true. I loved her stuff. It was very personal and I found it interesting getting to know so much about her online before ever setting eyes on her. There was a ton of material. Stories about her kids vomiting on her in public, one about the worst gas station bathroom on the planet. But I quickly started to notice a trend. A lot of stories about bodily functions. After she told me to read a series called MILF with Herpes Been Hookin’ I got a little worried. I started scrolling back through my emails to see if I had ever given her my phone number or address.
Our schedules were challenging so we finally agreed to meet late one night after we both finished other events. It was after 11 and the only thing open that late on a weeknight was a douchebag bar in downtown Santa Rosa. I got there just a few minutes before her. It was pretty crowded and loud. I had just enough time to get a couple champagne cocktails and grab the last open table in the corner.
I caught sight of her coming in the front door. Our eyes met and locked as she made her way over to me. It was as if all the sounds of the bar went quiet for one moment. Then she tripped over the leg of a chair and stumbled. I saw her reach for the back of the chair to steady herself, but instead hit the man sitting there because as if being pulled by the string of a puppeteer, the drink in his hand shot straight out onto the chest of the blond girl across from him. She immediately raised both arms in some kind of protest gesture which knocked the martini glass from the hand of the guy sitting next to her. That glass hit the floor and made some noise. There was a series of what the fuck?’s from the various people involved and then the bar did get really quiet as everyone looked at Amanda. She was clean and dry and standing there a bit awkwardly trying to hand the blond girl a napkin. There was a scattered round of applause and then people quickly went back to their drinks. I said to Amanda, but loud enough for the dripping, angry people to hear, Hey, maybe we can grab the bartender and get these guys another round, as I pulled her around the corner toward the other end of the bar. Once out of sight I leaned in close and said, Let's go!, pointing to the side door.
We barely made it out the door before we both started laughing. Quite an entrance! was all I could get out. She informed me that she had in fact learned to walk in heels at the Barbizon School of Modeling. Later we joked about which of us was going to get to write about this. I guess I won. Or maybe she’s just waiting to tell her side of the story. Shit.
We both had early mornings so we didn’t stay out late but we agreed to meet again that coming Saturday evening. The pre-date nervous energy propelled me to sit and write out most of this story. I was almost finished when I heard a car pull up out front. 5:30, right on time. I grabbed my coat and walked out. On the front porch I stopped.
Oh shit, what the hell is she driving? Is that a U-Haul?
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