Mom I finally did something this last weekend I’ve been wanting to do for ages, but had put off – I joined a dating site. I’m not sure if one would call it a realization, or acceptance, but I want someone in my life and I’m not going to find them hanging out by my stoop when I get home from work (and if I did that would be just a wee bit creepy). Therefore I guess I have to venture forth into the world, broaden my horizons.

However, a great deal of anxiety develops when I venture forth, or think of. As an introvert, I do love my solitude, so loneliness is of course tempered by this desire for solace from other humans energy at times as well. For me the challenge I suppose is finding that balance.

So on Saturday night in a fit of boredom I finally seriously sat down and figured out which site to use, and I setup a profile, and AWHOOSH, in flowed the messages. By Monday morning I was wading through 20 or more messages from random dudes throughout southwestern Ontario. Eeek.

Yup. Which is another reason I’ve put it off – bit overwhelming.

It’s not the first time I’ve used a dating site, and based on that experience of a decade ago, I’m determined to do it differently this time out.

Being an attractive guy is one thing, but being attractive to PaulaB, well, that’s someone else entirely. Everyone I suppose must think their own tastes are strange, as what I may find appealing, another would think completely uninteresting. For instance, I like my men tall and shaggy haired. In the past I recognize I just didn’t have any clear idea what I wanted, or how to find what I wanted.

These dating sites though make you feel like some prize heifer at auction, from the weeding process you go through at the start, right down to the date itself, where you circle each other, measuring their potential.

Whilst shuffling through the myriad of eligible bachelors, I find it disconcerting to reject someone based on looks alone. But we do it in one way or another everyday, we just don’t always have an actual stack of potential bachelors pictures at our fingertips, but we do it. We subtly rate people, based on our own internal scale, criteria, or otherwise. Of course not for dating purposes, but for various other things, other criteria unique to us.

We all have that internal meter of what we find alluring, and by god I must have some sort of criteria. So I found myself flipping through, rejecting them based on things like…

LOOKS LIKE A SERIAL KILLER

TOO CLEAN CUT

OMG NO,

or just MEH.

Merrily shuffling through this stack of pics of potential, clicking no, no, no, no, YES, maybe, no, no, no, no, YES, etc. Which if I’m honest I would have been doing if I’d decided to go to the bar, just that as the beer drained down my throat one of two things would have been achieved,

1) I would have up’d the likelihood of attracting another loser/loner boy, or
2) I’d get screwed (and that’s all I’d get).

Tell ya one thing Mom I’ve learned over the years, and that’s that the sort of guy I’m attracted to doesn’t photograph well. I think maybe what I’m attracted to is something else, and something that is hard to capture in two dimensions.

That’s a challenge of course when all you have to go on is a photograph. I guess that’s probably why these sites are such a crap shoot when it comes to having success, as attraction depends heavily on such ethereal aspects that rarely translate well into kodachrome.

So, that is why I’m blawdy up at 3:15 am writing. I have my first date tonight. We’re meeting at the Timmies near where I work, and we’ve been texting back and forth like crazy since Monday afternoon when texted him for the first time. We’d messaged back and forth through the site, but he gave me his number Sunday afternoon, and by Sunday night when I hadn’t text him yet…he sends this message “its ok Paula if your shy, text me when you can“.

So the next morning, Monday morning, I wrote down his number on a scrape of paper and shoved it in my purse as I was leaving – figured, what the hell, what can it hurt?

Something about him intrigues me, so I’m very curious to see if I’m right. OR, if I’m f’en insane and need to go back to square one on my rating criteria.

So wish me luck Mom – I figure what can happen? I either meet up with my hairy, hippy soul mate for life, OR, a guy to keep me occupied for a bit. Win Win. OR, as my sister would no doubt being pointing out right about now, or he’s a serial rapist/killer or some such negative nonsense, but I rather doubt it. He’s a building superintendent, and I guess he today gave some old gal CPR when she had a heart attack. She had called him to help her move her bed, and right in front of him I guess the old dear went stark white and dropped to the ground.

If nothing else, I think they security screen super’s don’t they? Well, of course that would be a tidbit of useless knowledge my dear sister would know.

So I figured I needed to get up early and fuss and fiddle, and maybe write and document this adventure. EEK.

Always,

Paula