Shorter than I expected

Yesterday I took down both my profiles because I've decided to make a go of it with Swain #4, who has come in and swept me off my feet.

Thanks for sharing the horror and excitement with me, Internet!

A benediction

I could take this in doses large enough to kill.

God bless the Internet.

Butt-sniff #4

These posts are easier to write when the date doesn't work out as well.

Butt-sniff number four was quite promising.  He came to my panel discussion and sat tolerantly through the whole of it.  We had originally planned to get a drink afterwards, but he sussed out that I'd not had dinner and steered us towards food instead.  He is handsomer in person than his photos, he smelled nice, and he is just as tall as he says he is online (which bodes well for the other things he's said about himself online).  And that means that I can wear my 4" orange platforms and still look up to him, just a bit.  At one point he said, "Yes, I think we both can be a little pedantic."  He offered the burgers and beer, and when I quibbled, said that I could leave the tip.  He walked me to my car, and asked my permission before kissing me lightly at the evening's end.

HE USED "PEDANTIC" ON OUR FIRST DATE!

We have a second date scheduled for tomorrow lunch.

The side effects of online dating

There've been a few side effects that I've noticed in the past two weeks of this process.  One of the weirdest is that now that I've got an online profile, I'm checking out all the guys around me and wondering what their online profile looks like, and whether they recognize me from mine.  And of course, the flip side of that coin is running across the profiles of people I know (or even funnier, having the algorithm suggest them to me).  I'd like a way to say, "Way to go, Staff Robot, you're on the right track, but not him, I know him, and he's not for me because..."

The fickle finger of fate

Remember swain number two?  In retrospect, he looked like he couldn't believe his luck when I showed up.  Yesterday he pressed his luck, and it didn't hold.

Good bye, swain number two.  Next contestant!

Butt-sniff #3: Reporting

We met for a drink after work.  A very nice gent, picked up the tab for beers and small plates.  We talked for nearly four hours and he cracked me up a lot.  Works the helpdesk at the client's office for an end-to-end resource management software implementation project.  At the end of the evening he said he'd like to see me again and I agreed.  Not sure if he's a fully qualified swain but a pretty great guy all told.  Wicked smart, wicked funny, well-adjusted.

Now I can say I've had dates with seven guys in two years, a 60% increase since last Sunday.

Rejection is a dish best served lukewarm

Thank goodness that someone out there somewhere has had my exact same problem, which means that someone has written this helpful article: http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/online-dating-dilemma-dishing-out-rejection.html

Stranger danger

All of my butt-sniffing candidates get this, if they don't pony up first with some details, or if I can't use the details they've provided in their profiles and correspondence to find them on the internet:

Hey [name], I made my sainted Ma a pinkie promise (a sacred oath in my household) that I wouldn't meet any strange men I met on the internet without knowing something more about them. I'm not saying you're strange, but I'm asking for a bit more than your nickname. And I'm happy to go first. I exist in the real world: [here I link to my linkedin profile]. Do you?

Filled with hope,

A possible match

Butt-sniffing report

Another nice guy, a computer geek.  He looked delighted when I showed up, offered the tacos.  Has five kids, ranging from old enough to be on OKC themselves to elementary school.  Was lamenting that he couldn't find anyone to take all the spare computer parts that he has, and was delighted to learn that the middle school robotics programs would probably be very interested.  Conversation ebbed and flowed, but there were decidedly dead spots.  I gave him a lift home (he has no car) and during the ride he confided that he'd had three OKC dates, two of which had been horrific, and counseled me to be wary of anyone who appears to be a perfect algorithmic match.  Actually, his exact words were, "Run screaming away."  Also asked if he could call me again.  He's probably not a good fit; his photo is 40 from pounds ago.

We will wait and see.

Experience economy

From a fellow online dater:

"Online dating frequently fails to meet user expectations because people, unlike many commodities available for purchase online, are experience goods: Daters wish to screen potential romantic partners by experiential attributes (such as sense of humor or rapport), but online dating Web sites force them to screen by searchable attributes (such as income or religion). ... Search goods—detergent, dog food, and vitamins—are goods that vary along objective, tangible attributes, and choice among options can be construed as an attempt to maximize expected performance along these measurable dimensions. Experience goods, in contrast, are judged by the feelings they evoke, rather than the functions they perform. Examples include movies, perfume, puppies, and restaurant meals—goods defined by attributes that are subjective, aesthetic, holistic, emotive, and tied to the production of sensation. Most importantly, people must be present to evaluate them; they cannot be judged secondhand because indirect experience can be misleading, causing people to mispredict their satisfaction when they encounter that choice." ---- Frost, Chance, Norton and Ariely, "People Are Experience Goods," Journal of Interactive Marketing, 22(1): 51-61.

Men connect through competition; women through conversation

There is no perfume more effective than the stink of another man, worn with an air of indifference and satisfaction.