Online Dating Round 1

9/1/09

Swagger? Check. Groove? Check. Now what?

Online dating?!

After getting my groove back with Green Shirt Guy, I reminded myself of the girl of my yesteryears. Like many other young twentysomethings, I frequently met and smooched my fair share of sometimes inappropriate guys without a care in my coming-home-at-the-break-of-dawn-vodka-fueled-bar-hopping world. Eventually I broke the cycle and ended up dating just one guy for a while. I realized that random lip locking all over New York City was not going to lead toward the kind of relationship I'd grown to enjoy and wanted again.

However, since life hadn’t brought me any new adventures since Green Shirt Guy, I decided to step out of my very structured, often traditional comfort zone and start dabbling in something I'd been hesitant to try in the past...online dating. Yes, you heard me, online dating. After hearing the stories of friends who either married the guy they met online or who swore it off forever, I figured the possibility of success was worth a shot. And, if worse came to worse, I'd at least collect a few more stories for my arsenal. After all, in many respects, dating is a numbers game.

My very wise friend, Brian, equated it to me like sales. You might talk with 20 or so prospective clients before you ever land a deal. With dating, you may meet 20 or so prospective boyfriends before you ever find one worthy of a first date. At least in this case, I'd have something I'd been lately lacking - options. Still, I wasn't totally ready to jump in until after a conversation with Lori, an expert online dater who is currently dating someone she met online. I expressed to her my concern that in spite of my efforts to be more open, my natural tendency is to judge when so much information is frontloaded. The bad spelling, cat lover would stand a much better chance snagging me at the bar than online since I wouldn't find out about his avoidance of spell check or Fluffy until after I was intrigued. She reassured me by comparing the experience to online shopping. Something we both were experts in! "You look at a lot of different screens. You browse a lot, but you actually only end up buying one or two." So just like with shopping, I realized I would have to be choosy about what I actually committed to and that was okay. And just like with some of my shopping purchases in the past, I will need to see just how someone works when they're in front of me.

Profile set up? Check. Now we just have to wait and see what adventure is out there for me next! Stay tuned to find out about the men who approach me online and how I respond.