Of Canceled Dates and Cruising for Mates
Last week, a certain eligible bachelor called to cancel on me for the second Friday night in a row. Now I ask you: what’s the point of registering for Match.com, creating a profile and enduring first dates with eight different men in the span of one month if you’re still going to spend your Friday nights alone?
Granted, said bachelor had very good reasons both times (in fact, I gave him a very good reason the first time) and he apologized profusely, but still.
For the first two weeks of my Match.com experience, it was Date #3 who held the Position of Honor (aka, my Friday night Plus One). But since Date #3 decided to opt out of my “experiment” around the same time that Date #4 proved to be a rather deadly combination of genuine kindness and unconventional sexiness (convenient how that worked itself out, no?) I decided to bestow the honor of my Friday night Plus One upon him (Date #4).
As per his instructions, I penciled him in for Friday. Make that two Friday’s actually—two in a row. And I penned, rather than “penciled him in” because I’m very particular about my day planner and I absolutely cannot abide anything other than black ink (unless of course I’m going through one of those rare but intense literary genius moments, in which case anything from a crayon to a neon highlighter will do the trick. But dates? Dates get written in black).
When dates are cancelled, I get very angry because then the pages of my planner start to look very cramped, and I do not like cramped pages in my day planner. They make me feel stressed—all those ugly black lines scribbled through the name of the offender are just so… so aesthetically unresolved— and the cancelled dates these pages represent leave me feeling rather glum.
The obvious solution, I find, is to go cruising on Match.com. I’m not looking to meet anyone else. In fact, I recently received an email from a would-be contender for the position of Date #9 to which I replied, “Maybe, but just as friends, okay?” It’s hard enough keeping this many balls in the air! I mean juggling this many balls… I mean… okay, maybe I should give up on the “balls” metaphors considering that I’m talking about men here.
But there are so many fascinating people in the world of Match.com, and if I don’t scroll through my Daily 5 every once in a while, how I am going to stumble upon their stories?
The only problem with trawling the waters of Match.com is that people can see when you’re trawling. This means, for example, that if Date #4 were to indulge in a little trawling the waters of his own, he’d stumble upon a nasty little icon that announces, “Kat’s been active within the past 24 hours!”
As if this wasn’t bad enough, it works both ways. When I sign on, I get that same nasty little message: “Date #4 has been active—an actively seeking an alternative to you, you oversensitive, irrational, demanding little wing nut— within the past 24 hours.” Sometimes it even says, “Did you actually think you were good enough for him? Pfffft. Dream on!”
Actually, the icon doesn’t say any of that. The icon simply tells me that Date #4 is keeping his options open and, quite possibly, that he finds people just as fascinating as I do. Maybe Date #4 actually harbors secret anthropological tendencies! Or so I’d like to think.
Either way, it is in honor of my anthropological tendencies that I feel compelled to report upon the following.
While last cruising, I stumbled upon the profile of a man who called himself “YourPlaceOrMine?” YourPlaceOrMine promises that your first date with him will be your last. I’m not sure if he means your last first date (presumably because he’s so awesome) or your last date ever (because he’s going to hit you over the head with a golf club and leave your body in an alley somewhere).
Next up is a man called AbsofSteel who uses the word “sh*t” three times in as many sentences.
Dave69 warns readers that he will not respond unless provided with a full body shot. And I used to think that I was fussy in terms of physical appearance!
Finally there’s TheGrammarNazi (and no, that’s not his real name, but it might as well be). He writes “If you go around constantly ending your sentences with ellipses,” he writes, “then I don’t really see things working out between us.”
For a minute there—a split second, really—I find myself intrigued. Not that I’m immune to poor grammar, and I’m definitely not immune to bad spelling, but I like a man who can put together a complete sentence (as opposed to AbsofSteel’s, “Uh yeah… reading? Hmmm… not really into reading, lol!).
All the same, I’m rather fond of the ellipsis. And the “m” dash. And an entire host of punctuation marks that I reasonably certain I use incorrectly half the time. I realize that my gross misconduct would probably earn me the title of Public Enemy Number One in the eyes of TheGrammarNazi.
But you know what? I don’t really care, because I’m just trawling the waters for fun now and TheGrammarNazi is definitely a catch and release sort of fellow.
Fieldwork in Stilettos 
5 Responses to “Of Canceled Dates and Cruising for Mates”
I’ve never used Match.com before. Are you seriously telling me that you’ve got people calling themselves “YourPlaceOrMine”? AbsOfSteel? and Davey69?
Talk about digging yourself a hole. Hahaha.
I must confess that these names are my own creations (part of the deal I made with myself when I started blogging about dating was that I wouldn’t use any real names) but they are… shall we say “inspired by?” some of the more bizzare profiles I’ve come across.
I love ellipses! I’m also the only person (in the world (that I know of)) who uses embedded parentheses.
Hey, if it works in math, it should work in English….
….
….
…. …. ….
Ok seriously? Kindred souls:
“As per his instructions, I penciled him in for Friday. Make that two Friday’s actually—two in a row. And I penned, rather than “penciled him in” because I’m very particular about my day planner and I absolutely cannot abide anything other than black ink (unless of course I’m going through one of those rare but intense literary genius moments, in which case anything from a crayon to a neon highlighter will do the trick. But dates? Dates get written in black).
When dates are cancelled, I get very angry because then the pages of my planner start to look very cramped, and I do not like cramped pages in my day planner. They make me feel stressed—all those ugly black lines scribbled through the name of the offender are just so… so aesthetically unresolved— and the cancelled dates these pages represent leave me feeling rather glum.”
I’m this crazy about my planner (well I was when I had one). There is just something about having that coordination down. Just a thought…have you ever tried white-out? Sometimes this can relieve the stress.
Yes, I love the strippy paper kind. Where you just press down and it comes off the roll and you don’t even have to let it dry 🙂