Saturday, March 19, 2011

the bottom of the bottom

My parents are away and I'm watching movies. Saturday night!

I thought, since this site began with a dating theme and circles around to it again and again eventually, that I'd share the following: I took myself off a certain dating site. And I feel great! I now only make plans with people who know me for real: friends. I have oodles of space to think, to write, talk on the phone, drink coffee, aggravate those around me, obsess over travel plans, an upcoming roadtrip. I spend my time with my dog and my family. I go on walks. More walks. I look at portland craigslist. A lot. I read whole novels and occasionally, I socialize. Why just today I fixed a poppy seed bagel with homemade pecan pesto and slices of sweet potato on top. Also, I blended a smoothie and made a dessert out of pistchio gelato, whipped cream and dare I say it, a sprig of frozen cookie batter. Yum. Soon, I'm going to try my hand at a pizza from scratch. I cannot be stopped.

But I must share a mini-epiphany, if only to help some hapless souls in the single world...

While walking in Brooklyn I was talking to my brother and he asked which dating site I'd been on.

OK Cupid.

His response was to halt, and I mean come to an immediate, dramatic stop on the sidewalk. The screech of crappy brakes in the distance.

And then he told me:

Dude. That's the bottom of the bottom.

Apparently OK Cupid is where singletons go to dip a toe in the dating pool but not dive in. It's for those of the recent break up, it's for those looking to just fuck around or joke around or fool around, or generally act like idiots and not really have relationships. After all, it is free.

All I could say was oh.

Does this mean I have not given NYC men a proper chance? Could my experiment have some skewed variable and not all single men in NYC are in their 40s, drunk-texting and standing women up while also have drug, alcohol abuse/dependence and various mental health diagnoses?

Perhaps. But I'm too tired to try another site right now. That would require effort. Maybe on another day I'll feel differently about it. For now-

Pesto? Or, tomato sauce? Goat cheese or mozzarella?

4 comments:

  1. Dear Brother (courtesy of Sister Writer's blog),

    OKCupid is great -- you obviously have been talking to the wrong people! Just because it's free doesn't make it bad; that's just the advertisers for Match.com talking. I met my guy on OKCupid, and also had chats -- and dates -- with plenty of other nice, well-adjusted fellas on there too.

    Just setting the record straight (or gay, as the case may be).

    ~N

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  2. Hey Nathan,

    If you don't want to pay then don't pay. Paying DOES however make a difference. I've found that people who aren't sure about online dating, just out of a relationship, or maybe just want to mess around and not do something serious, do Ok Cupid. My sister has actually been on OK Cupid in Portland and NYC already. She's tried it. So why don't you ask her, or better yet just read a bunch of her posts, about how many nice, well adjusted males she's met on Ok Cupid? She hated it because just about every "nice, well adjusted fella" was a complete and total flake.

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  3. Fight! Fight!

    No, let's face it--

    You are both right. Nathan: you found a gem. And BmanNYC, I did find a plethora of flakes and freaks. There's only one way to resolve this: put my tush on eharmony & match. Yes! But not just yet!

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  4. Agreed: luck of the draw. Pay or don't pay -- there are lots of nice people and plenty of flakes and creep-a-zoids tossed into Life's mix. It's a matter of timing, fate, and willpower. Go team go!

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