Super Sonic   +  trip

Internet Dating 101

As promised.... you are now all following my internet dating adventures. The excitement this has generated is heart warming.... and terrifying. Here's hoping you won't all be terribly disappointed.

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I feel like a bitch.

I scroll through profiles, pictures, men who become ranked on a sliding scale of possibility. I discover I'm incredibly shallow- the first decision I make is based on a person's profile picture. It's all about appearance, how they come look. Then I cull according to age, job prospects, and existence- or lack of- grammar and punctuation in their personal descriptions.

It starts to feel very much like business. I am at an advantage here, I know how to sell myself in the arena of social media... this is almost the same thing.

As I pick and choose, cull and dismantle, it occurs that other people are doing the same thing to me. Discovering someone has no interest in you stings and is a knock to the self esteem.

The Lori I look like in the land of Internet dating.

I have to remind myself... this is, essentially, a game, and it never pays to get emotionally involved in games. I try to keep a sense of humour, a distance, a wall between myself and what's happening here, the way I do on my blog, the way I do online.

The emotional stuff comes later. For now, it's just choosing people like flavours, like lollies.

***

It is an odd place to be, the online dating world. The dating world in general. Who would have thought I'd be doing this again, when I was actually so relieved to be married, to not have to go through all that all over again.

There are so many men on this dating site who post pictures of themselves in wigs and fancy dress... if anyone can shed light on this phenomena for me I'd appreciate it, because I just do not understand it.

Ditto to the guys who post pictures of themselves with other girls. I don't care if she's your best mate, or a stripper, or your best mate who looks like a stripper.... it's not helping your cause.

Other things that may not be helping your cause...? "I have a big plasma TV in my house". Seriously...? Wow. Just what I've always been looking for.

I've also been looking for someone is unemployed. No, not really. If you are unemployed, that's fine, but please come up with a more creative way of putting it than that. Or not. Adding a message to your profile that says "I'm not subscribed to this site- add me on FaceBook" just compounds that loser-thing you've got going on.

If you can afford $40 to subscribe to a dating website, how on earth are you going to take me out to dinner? When will you ever get around to buying me flowers....?

And the last one for now... I assure you there is plenty more to come.... there is actually some nice guy out there who has, on his dating profile, that he is looking for a nice woman to help him take care of his mother.

Take care of his mother.

Best of luck with that.

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It's not as bad as it sounds. I've even run into a few normal, decent looking men on there.... and I may have a date or two lined up. I'll keep you posted.

Oh, and to my anonymous commenter.... email me. I dare you.