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I don’t date.

Nope. Almost never. The last date I went on doesn’t even really fall under that heading. I threw my near-constant caution to the wind and met a guy at his place to play Wiffle ball at ten a.m.. No big deal, except for the fact that I had only “met” him online… a day before I went to his apartment… after being awake for two days. Not the cleverest of decisions, I admit. What can I say? His arguments were compelling. Also, he was 6’2”? Over six-foot anyway, and I am charmed by tall men. It’s not good—My demonstrable intelligence is inverse proportional to the probability of my interest. A smart, tall male = breathless idiot, and he said this, which is proof that my actions were not at all my fault:

YesM: I’m not used to feeling this—interest.
YesM: I mean,
YesM: who Are you?
MBruce: I’m Batman.

Clearly, I had no choice. He was Batman. He used punctuation!

But much like Bruce’s alter ego, my idea of him was fantasy. I had no idea he was on cocaine and had been every moment of his life for the previous ten years or so. Groovy. Clearly it was not meant to be. Lesson learned: Dating is complicated, messy, and illuminating. I assumed he was a sign that I’d be alone forever; as disappointing as it was, I figured I was allowed a little wild extrapolation. Of course, my trusty gal-pal assured me that I was overreacting. Okay, okay. I can’t prove her wrong. If you say so. I’m putting my knitting basket and twenty-seven cats on the back-burner.

PostSecret

No, seriously, come find me.

Where?

Where are these geeks, these gamers, these avid readers and mad scientists? Or artists and writers… Logophiles and engineers? These computer fiends. Where are they?

THEY’RE HOME!

Just like me. Reading arcane texts or listening to German covers of fifties Rockabilly while watching anime with the sound muted. Learning how to DIY a new iPod speaker dock, looking up cheat codes, doing research for fun. Obsessively, reflexively checking their email.

While chain-linking through a bunch of different sites, I came across Geek’s Dream Girl. The Geeks’ dreamgirl in question helps internet daters polish their profiles and pictures to give them the best chance of finding someone and in the process, boosts their confidence. A mod that can only aid all of us. Maybe the feminist in me should be pitching a fit about the idea of someone padding a profile or “stretching the truth” in order to get women to fall for a guy to whom they would otherwise never give the time of day. Not only do I think she’s innocent of such shenanigans, and has exactly the right motivation, I think her site and her services are an excellent idea. She doesn’t sleaze guys up by lying or giving them a six-minute, Glamour Shot makeover. She’s their coach, their guide and in some cases I’m sure, an interpreter of the scary internet dating world. I’m glad that there is someone encouraging the men I encounter online to relax… And to refrain from sending the full frontal shot unless I expressly ask for it. She helps them choose good photos and gives examples of memorable opening emails. She advises spell-check and grammar-check, whether computer-aided or otherwise and she frowns absolutely on the cut-and-paste. So something like this…

Hi,
I jsut saw your profile and I think ur cute.
I hope to hear back form u soon.
X

might become far less common than:

γειά σου,
My name is Xavier.
Okay, I confess, I do not know Greek. I used a free translator. Now that I’ve come clean, it’s nice to e-meet you.
Your profile mentions you also like comic books and playing Prototype in addition to listening to Greek language-lesson recordings. Do you have an X-box or a Playstation? And, more importantly, which one: DC or Marvel?

Cheers,
Mr. X

which would absolutely garner a reply from me, easily (on a side note: I only wish I had Prototype. Stupid current X-box, not being a 360).

Perhaps with GDG’s help… dare I hope? Consistently intelligible emails? How will I know I’m online?
I’ll adapt.

Anyhow, while there poking around, I came across an article which featured the PostSecret on this page. Her reaction to it was the same as mine. I could have sent that card in. This all made me feel both better and worse. Better because sympathy, even from afar, is always welcome. As little as I would wish this odd blend of resignation and frustration on anyone else, it’s sort of nice to know that I’m not the only one.
It’s worse only because it really is true. At least if it were my own fault, I might be convinced that I have recourse. I could change my habits and be more likely to find like-minded people.* But if so many girls and women, and I imagine many men as well, are having this same problem… Well, perhaps now it’s clear why, despite my eye-rolling and initial attitude, I still maintain an active profile, still write back and still log in every few days. I’m not going to meet my geek in the Wilds and I really don’t think that that geek is going to come and find me. In the meanwhile, I’ll just be watching Serenity, writing in this blog, and reorganizing my thousand-and-one books by color and shade.

 

 

*Like many other descriptive terms I tend not to use for myself, I wouldn’t say I’m a geek, though the dating site which houses my profile insists that I am a breed of one, “Modern, Cool Nerd.” I’d say I’m more of a geek-groupie. I like that I can have a conversation with most geeks that covers more ground than just the latest episode of GLEE. It also gets into books we’ve read and concepts we’ve researched… and zombies. It’s just a relief to feel amongst familiar company and I rarely find it elsewhere.

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