Sometimes Technology Really Sucks

Before I go back in time to describe my brief eHarmful journey of 2008 that eventually led to me dating an angry midget on Match, I have to check in for the here and now with a complaint about how modern technology has impacted dating. At times it seems like I’ve just found new and more prolific ways of humiliating myself. I had dipped my toes back in the waters of okCupid a few weeks ago to see what was out there and thought I had caught a good one. He’s 36, likes writing, is happy in his job, moved back to the Baltimore area recently, and his profile was pretty interesting. We emailed back and forth for a couple of weeks. The conversations weren’t scintillating but not everyone is great at e-mail and he seemed like an intelligent guy who’d be worth getting to know better. I thought in the next couple of emails he would ask when I wanted to meet in real life to see what happened.

Instead the last email I got from him was over a week ago and at the end of the email he mentioned he asked what street I lived on – he thought since we lived in the same smallish suburban community that there was a real chance that we might have already seen each other around. I was a little freaked when he wanted to know where I lived before we met (after some of the guys I’ve dated, I’ve found it pays to be careful) and even more freaked out when he said he lived right off of my street. When I wrote him back, I answered all his other questions, asked him a few, and just ignored the “where do you live” question.

Since then, nothing. Nada, zip. And the negative little voice in my head – the voice that after years of being everyone’s single friend, attending showers and weddings, getting to know people’s fiancées, spouses, and eventually children; meanwhile I’m dating freak after freak, ok guy after ok guy – that voice started whispering the annoyingly negative question, “what if he saw you walking down the street and didn’t like what he saw?” “What if the day that you were walking Charlie, sweating like a pig, wearing the shorts with the paint all over the butt and had your hair all ratted up in a messed up pony tail, he took one look and ran for the hills?”

If I didn’t know that he lived on the same street as me and he stopped communicating, I’d just assume that he met someone else. But now, the little voice in my head, the one that says, “Why are you still single when everyone around you is married or at least can successfully date someone for more than six months,” won’t shut up. The worse thing is with this idiotic website I joined I can see that he’s been online. Like every day. So every day he’s choosing to not email me. It was a little easier before I experienced the joy of internet dating and I didn’t have to feel rejected by strangers before I even met them.

This could just be the root canal talking. I’m in the midst of extensive and heinous dental work currently where time not spent working whilst holding a bag of ice to my face while I type is being spent sitting in the dentist’s office while he tries to figure out how to most painfully work on my teeth in the most time consuming way possible. My ongoing dental drama has put me in a rather negative state of mind. I think I better take another pain pill and call it a night, hoping for a little more positivity later. But before I do this, I’ll pick myself up, dust off a little more of my pride, and go back on that site, find an intriguing guy or at least a good-looking one who can pull of a good internet profile, and send him a quick note. Although at times it feels like madness to carry on, it feels too much like giving up for me to stop entirely.

For now, it’s time to cuddle up with my faithful canine and try not to dread the dental dilemma tomorrow. Next stop on my stroll down amnesia lane on the road to romantic recovery will be the two guys I can remember from eHarmony before the longer and more amusing/alarming stint with Match.