All the single ladies

Slightly geographically misplaced SWF seeking unmarried, un-girlfriended (hey, it should be a word), de-cluttered, baggage-less, sane man who is not seeking a booty call. Okay, that isn’t what I wrote when I delved into the world of Internet dating for exactly four days, but it is perhaps what I should have written.

Recently, some of my students had to write essays about Internet dating. (Yes, I realize how ridiculous the assignment was, in a country with incredibly spotty Internet service, students without computers, and some perhaps without electricity at home, but I made the assignment based on a newspaper article in one of the local papers here.)  After reading so many first and second drafts about this topic, I got curious and decided to take the plunge myself into the chaotic yet sometimes fruitful world of Internet dating, kind of as a social experiment (and, mostly, to be honest, I thought it would make for a good blog post).  Plus, I’d recently gone out on a few dates with someone here who, I later found out, has a girlfriend.  So, what better way to assuage the disgust of knowing you went out with a cheating bastard (or the thought that it's somehow all Karmic) than to peruse profiles of thousands of single men and choose the ones to your liking. It’s kind of like the meat market idea gone virtual and then sanctioned by society.

I know friends who have ‘met’ a plethora of men online, some who have been on lots of dates as a result, and two who have married men they met online. However, after four days of having an active profile on an online dating site, I realized how much dross my friends must have sifted through to find people they wanted to merely meet.

I imagine you’re all wondering just exactly what kind of things happened to me in those four days.  And even though I’m still emotionally scarred from the experience (okay, not really), I’ll recount the messages I found most, er, interesting.

As we all know, first lines are important to hook the reader into reading more, into being interested in whatever else follows. And when it’s a dating site with thousands of people to possibly date, you’d think people would take the time to carefully phrase that very important first line of that very important first message that is sent to someone. Or not.

Here are a few first lines of first messages (and first impressions gone awry) that I received. And I kid you not that these are the very first lines that some guys sent me as their very first message. (Seriously, why doesn’t anyone start with “Hi”?)

“I am articulate, too.”

[Yay for you!  But if you have to announce it as your first line, it makes me a bit skeptical of its veracity.]

“Do you really speak Japanese?”

[Did I not write in my profile that I spoke it ‘poorly’? Clearly you must have read that in order to formulate this question. Are you actually calling me a liar straightaway?]

“I was driving with my knees across midtown in gridlock traffic(typical nyc)and had to pull over to send you this message, almost crashed because of you, now being chased by a killer squirrel, so I hope you're worth it ;)”

[Yes, I would love to get in the car with you now to go out on a date! I mean, driving with your knees while browsing online dating websites is such a turn on!]

“surely there must be able, intelligent and single men in Africa. . .even if you are in an undeveloped country do you not get to socialize with the foreign diplomats?”

[Dude, you actually took time out of your day, not to say hi and introduce yourself, but to give me dating advice? And to tell me that I should be trying to hook up with diplomats because clearly those must be the only able, intelligent, single men in any underdeveloped country in Africa? If there were an emoticon of flipping the bird, it would have gone straight to your inbox.] 

“Are you for real?”

[Um…no, I’m an angel sent from heaven. Duh.]

I honestly thought I’d last a bit longer than four days. I mean, imagine what other messages I could have gotten if I’d only held out longer. And, who knows, maybe someone would have even sent me a message that started with a clichéd yet still appreciated “hi” after all.