Ready, set, GO!

So its June 29, 2012 and it has been 28 days of me doing nothing. I am roommateless, due to her Indy move, and I am off for the summer. So, when I reflect on the past 28 days the word I would use to describe my summer would be…boring. I mean its my own fault because I went in needing a break and not wanting to work but there are only so many days you can sit by the pool and read before feeling totally worthless. I think with the move of my roommate, my friends having day jobs and living far from me, and my family having lives and being 30 minutes away I am just feeling lonely. Lonely…such a terrible feeling to have. Being in a state of isolation by yourself. Its enough to make a person go mad.

So as I sat watching my 3 episode of “Cold Case” on the old tube feeling alone, it dawned on me that if I had someone who liked doing the same things as me and wanted to be around me I wouldn’t be lonely. And if this magical person came out of nowhere I could share my 2-person bag of microwave popcorn with them and eat half the calories instead of eating the whole bag myself! And then a dating website commercial came on the TV. I knew that I had to try it. Here I am 25, alone in my apartment, eating popcorn, watching murder mysteries and watching the world go by. I want to be that girl that has love and a companion and doesn’t have to rack her brain for a date to her friend’s wedding. I mean is it really too much to ask?!?! I’ve never been a girl with a billion boyfriends and people lining up to date me but at some point I thought someone would come my way. Obviously I was wrong because for the past 5 years I have been sitting and waiting and there has been nothing. So I figure a dating website is a good idea and also a solution to my problem. I figure I can blog about the experience and let everyone in on the whole “online dating” phenomenon.

Online dating…hmm online dating. It is such a trend right now and I am a skeptic. I’m a skeptic because my parents met in high school, my friends met their husbands and fiancés in college and the way the world has worked the past billion years has everything to do with the natural chemistry of 2 people meeting for the first time in person.  You hear classic stories like “ohh we were high school sweethearts and I remember the first day I saw her in gym class” or “I just so happen to walk into the wrong restaurant and there he was sitting at the first table.” Love stories don’t start off by saying “well I was desperate because nobody would approach me at a bar so I had to go on the Internet and find other desperate people who wanted a date.”  And that is where I find the problem. I don’t want to have to admit that I am desperate….Desperate to have what so many of my friends have but not successfully finding it in the classic bar scene. The fact of the matter is online dating seems like it would work for me. I am stuck between a rock and a hard place because I don’t want to be judged by others or myself for going to online dating but I also want a chance to find someone. So I had to ask myself…am I a pathetic desperate 25 year old who needs to go to the Internet to find other desperates? Or am I a woman of the 21^st century who is technologically savvy and is evolving with the nation and the new advances we are making with technology and society? And I conclude that I’m a mix because I can’t get past the judgments of myself which is ironically what I am scared of with dating in general…people judging me.

So after I bit the bullet and created a new email address to attached to this dating website’s emails,  I got started. One of the first sets of questions asks “your body type.” My initial reaction was “oh great not only am I prying on a insecurity of being single for 5 years but now we are going to hone in on my biggest insecurity of body issues.” So I had to classify my body… sure this should be so simple…choice #1 “slender.” Ummm no. Choice #2 “Big and Beautiful.” Shut up! That’s an option?!?! I’m going with no. Choice #3 “Curvy.” Okay, I have plenty of curves but is that another way to say I have some cushion? The last thing I want to display on this website is “I’m fat, date me.” Choice #4 “About Average.” Okay, this is a slide under the radar kinda low-key answer, which I like. Choice #5 “Athletic and toned.” Ha, yea before I hit puberty and discovered a love of French-fries.  Choice #6 “full-figured.” Another nice way to say fat. Choice #7 “heavyset.” OH HELL NO! Who wants that to be under their name? Choice #8 “A few extra pounds.” Well yea, but anyone with a vagina thinks they have a “few extra pounds” than they should have. And that’s like a nice way to say “I’m not skinny but I don’t want to have to put ‘big and beautiful’.” Choice #9 “Stocky.” I mean come on. So you can either be “slender” or some variation of fat. So “About Average” wins this race. I didn’t have to lie and say I was skinny and I didn’t have to admit to strangers via Internet that I have a “few extra pounds” that I wish weren’t hanging around in all the wrong spots.

For someone who was in such a fragile state as me having to classify your body type wasn’t a welcoming start.

So don’t be scared future online daters, filling out this long ass profile only takes an hour and makes you second guess EVERYTHING you are. I literally second guessed every single answer I put. If I put that my favorite TV show is “Real Housewives of New Jersey” are they going to think I am shallow? If that makes you shallow I am because I live for that show. And if some weeks I workout 3-5 times a week and some weeks I sit on my ass can I put that I workout 3-4 times a week and not be a huge disappointment when I walk into a date and I’m not classified as “athletic and toned”? “Describe yourself in 3,000 characters”? I’m sorry but what the hell do you put? I am a lot of things and I just want to say all the right things so I can be a success story! The whole time I filled this thing out I was a mess. What should I put? Is that giving off the wrong message? I want to be witty and interesting but I didn’t want to seem like a big flirt on the website to find a creep. How much of me is interesting? And then it hit me…if I was going to want to find someone who is compatible and wants to be around me while I’m grotesquely sitting on my couch licking my buttery popcorn fingers, with my dirty pool hair in a bun on top of my head, marinating in my own filth from a long day at the pool…I’m going to need to be honest on this thing and hope someone bites. If not this experience would be one big flop. 

So there is the back information. I successfully just signed up for one full month of dating online. I’m looking at this computer screen and it says I have 2 winks and 1 person interested in me. What does that even mean?!?! I guess I just have to remind myself that this could be the start of a relationship and a new life.