My Reactionary Reactivation
Image by yarnivore via Flickr
It’s 3:00am. (Do you know where your children are?) Conventional wisdom suggests “the best way to get over one man is to get under another” and even though I have no intention of following this advice to its literal conclusion, I find myself back on Match.com, headed straight for “Reactivation.”
“Are you sure you want to do this?” types my friend from Lyon (it’s already morning in France and we’re Google chatting).
“Yes,” I type back. “Definitely.” Then, because I can’t spell, I type “definitely” again, which gives my friend just enough time to formulate another question I’d rather not answer.
“Don’t you think you should take some time off?”
Time off? From dating? Yeah right. The annual Richter Roof Deck New Years Eve Martini Bar Soiree is less than a month away! (We’re rather big on Martini Bar Soirees in the Richter family. Pretty soon we’ll be celebrating Easter with pale pink cocktails, because nothing says “Christ has risen, He has risen indeed!” like a bottle of vanilla vodka and a shot of cranberry juice.)
Given the abject failure of my attempt to acquire an official Plus One in time for Black Friday, I don’t actually care about finding myself a date for New Years. It’s too stressful, and I tend to go a bit wonky on New Years as it is (perhaps someday I’ll write about the epic melodrama that comprised Midnight 2007…) but I wouldn’t mind having sometime to go holiday shopping with. Or sledding. Or skating. Indeed, there’s an entire world of winter sports (I mean “dates”) I have yet to try.
I know this because sometimes, when I have nothing better to do (or rather, when I have plenty of better things to do but find none of them appealing), I Google “Great Christmas dates.” In the event that Date #17 came to his senses, begged for my forgiveness and suddenly found the time to take me ice skating at Penn’s Landing, or to the holiday lights show at Longwood Gardens, or to the Pennsylvania Ballet’s production of The Nutcracker (or better yet, to New York City Ballet’s), or to a tree lighting ceremony, or window shopping on 5th Avenue in Manhattan, I wanted to be prepared.
Unfortunately I’ve already missed the tree lighting ceremony at Rockefeller Center (and Philadelphia’s Rittenhouse Square version as well) and I’m fairly certain I won’t be hearing from Date #17 ever again.
“No,” I typed back. “I’m ready to get back on the horse.”
“You don’t need some time to recover?”
“Nope,” I replied. “Definately Definitely not.”
(As a side note, I think I’m going to go public with my break ups more often. The amount of support I’ve received from my so-called “public” has been, well, without getting all emotional, it’s been lovely. There’s nothing like a “You go girl!” from a perfect stranger to take sting out of a breakup, although I will warn you, do not read any comments from my fellow blogger Dennis, mastermind of Musings on Life and Love, while eating your lunch. You will, invariably, find yourself cracking up and spitting soup all over your computer.)
I know I could sit around wallowing/reprioritizing/doing laundry/taking some “me” time to discover who I really am and what I really want… or I could just minimize my Google chat window, slide my cursor a bit further to the left and click “Reactivate.”
I’m practically salivating by the time I select what is, obviously, the more sensible of these two options. New men! New outfits! New dates! New stories! Finally I can stop blogging about my attempts to indoctrinate four years old in the ways of “Peter! Peter Parker! Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater Tie-Cough-ski” (which translates, I think, to Tchaikovsky).
But there’s a problem with this picture. As the results of my Match.com search come into focus, I realize that I’ve seen him, and him, and him—I’ve seen all of them!— before.
There’s Date #12, third from the right. And there’s—okay, this is not good.
Evidently I’ve already dated every eligible bachelor in Philadelphia. At least I’ve already dated every eligible bachelor between 6’ and 6’ 3” within a five mile radius (and I’m not about to lower my standards; pun most definitely intended).
The way I see it, I have three options:
1) Change zip codes (the whole point of my initial online dating experiment was to fall in love in and with Philadelphia. A long distance affair doesn’t really fit the master plan at this point in time so maybe I should just move and search within a new five mile radius).
2) Wait another six months until the waters of Match.com have been repopulated with new fish (evidently two months isn’t long enough of a hiatus when you take the catch and release approach to dating).
3) Give up (soul searching and all that jazz, although really, where’s the fun in that?).
4) Try a something new (I’m not really sure what this “something new” should entail but I have every confidence that I will—with the help of my “public”—figure it out).
Kat Echevarría Richter 
26 Responses to “My Reactionary Reactivation”
Have you thought about trying eharmony? Ive found that the people on match differ significantly from those on eharmony.
Well, one immediate observation is that there are other online dating services…
Another observation is really a question – does it really have to be in a 5 mile radius to still be Philadelphia?
nothing says “Christ has risen, He has risen indeed!” like a bottle of vanilla vodka and a shot of cranberry juice.
This is why your blog is fun to read. It’s less about the serial dating and more about the legitimate cleverness. Keep up the great work.
That was my favorite line too–but alas, even I will draw the line at Easter Martini bars (although I can picture cross swizzle sticks), after all we have the Manton Street soirees to attend during that “season”: Dr. Seuss’s Birthday, Arbor Day and Cinco De Mayo.
Dr. Seuss’e Birthday?!! Can we come?
5) eHarmony?
Ugh. Please. No. I’ve had bad experiences with them.
Ive had great luck with eharmony. I haven’t found anyone yet, but Ive found the people much more pleasant than those Ive talked with on match. I feel like Ive gotten something positive out of almost every date. That counts for something!
Hmmm… I’m getting tempted!
Hey, thanks for the plug! I think you were just happy that I cussed out D17 on your behalf. 😉
By the way, I think “Date #so-and-so” is just too mushy and affectionate. To properly emulate the assembly-line mentality, I suggest you resort to only letters and numbers from now on.
I was going to add that you can even use the “S” and “E” suffixes to designate standard- and extended-length models. But, for you, I’m guessing they’re all going to be E-series models, anyway….
Can’t wait to hear about D18E!
Oh, and I hope you don’t end up with any hatchbacks….
try craigslist. a few reasons: the men usually outnumber the women, you can be as witty and clever as you want to be (no silly profile to complete),i know a few people who have had great success with dates from craigslist (including myself!), and did i mention it’s free?
I agree! The caliber of men on Craigslist is much more… interesting, but those are my boys! As a woman, you’ve got an advantage, too, because there’s a ton of girlspam. They’ll freak out when they realize you’re real.
Good to know! I had never thought about Craigslist (always seemed a bit creepy to me) but maybe I’ll check it out…
Dear Landlord, please share what is the official alcoholic beverage of Dr Seuss’s birthday parties?
For the Manton Street parties, color is most important when bringing food & drink, “Red” for President’s B’day(cherries, etc.), “green” for Arbor Day, brown for Groundhog, so Dr. S is “pink”(Pink Yink Drink) or “red” (his hat). Also someone always brings green eggs and ham, which once you get past the color is quite tasty…bear in mind all of this takes place in front (outside rain or shine) of our neighbors house, w/ the garage wide open, and the setups extending out onto the sidewalk. So the long answer is there is no “official drink” just official colors to keep in mind when getting creative 😉
change the zip code 🙂
How disappointing! It didn’t really occur to me that the supply of potential dates on a site like Match would run dry so quickly. I was going to suggest other sites too, but also maybe speed dating? (I can’t remember whether you’ve made previous mention of an aversion to this.)
Tried it once in a college for a charity fundraiser. Maybe I should give it another shot…
We don’t give up that easy. You could try something new, while the time passes by, the waters will eventually repopulate and there you go…new fish. But…don’t know what that “new” thing is…sorry, we’ll figure sth out.
haha, loved the part about Christmas dates. i may or may not have been dragging a new boy to every imaginable holiday activity in the city and we just bought tickets to the nutcracker. my friends are jealous as their more long-term BFs and husbands will not agree to go to all these things.
Lucky you! Enjoy Nutcracker 🙂
If I was you, I would wait to reactivate till after the New Year. There should be a big influx. Just take this time to enjoy the Holidays. I wish I was your friend in real life and we could go together to your family parties. I do this for many of my friends that cannot bear the thought of spending the holidays with their family. The result…so much fun. Maybe that is what you should do. This holiday season do exactly what you want to do. If it means spending Christmas in bed reading or having a spa night with your friends, then do it. Or you could always go stag to everything. I learn a lot about myself when I go to a party all by myself.
Whatever you do, just enjoy yourself.
http://besswess.wordpress.com
Aww, thanks! I starting to think that I don’t need a boyfriend, just more GIRLfriends to hang out with 🙂
I really come off as the boring sensible killjoy on your blog, your readers must hate me as I suggested cutting down on what they’re most interested in…
In my defense, I still don’t think you needed to hear anything else at 3 AM 🙂
Suerte! And maybe I will come down to Philly so we can do a blind double date, what do you say?
Um, YES!!! (To the double date part, not the killjoy part- I do need the “voice of reason” to knock me on the head every once in a while). Remind me when you’re back in the states?
““Definately Definitely not.””
This is the way that I always spell definitely! I am constantly telling my boyfriend that I hate that word just because it doesn’t have an ‘a’ in it. And it really should. I mean, it would make my life easier if all the words that I spelled incorrectly on a regular basis would adapt. 😉