The Match.com Game

So Does the Digital Age Assist or Destroy the Ritual of Dating?

From Alternet:

"Has the search for erotic gratification ever been so efficient?" asks Wesley Lang, who just read and (sympathetically) critiqued 132 Sex Diaries, published weekly in New York magazine since April 2007. In each, using a pseudonym (i.e. The Polyamorous Paralegal), a New Yorker keeps a daily (sometimes hourly) record of his or her dating and mating activities, then a "rambunctious cacophony of commenters" pounces. Taken together, the collection cracks "open a window into the changing structure, rhythm and rhetoric of sex in New York."

Much has clearly changed. "Palliatives" like personal ads, paid dating services, dirty videos and magazines used to be "generally understood to be the province of weirdos and losers." Now, of course, palliatives are the norm. Dating sites and Facebook are ubiquitous, as is text messaging. And these social technologies have "changed the nature of the game."

In June of this past year I decided to try the online dating thing as an experiment.

After two failed marriages, I had hit a wall and had resigned myself to living out the next half of the journey alone. It was sort of freeing to make that decision. Some of my best friends on the planet are single and, while I'm quite sure they all relish the prospect of "getting some" every now and again, they all seem perfectly effective getting through the days as productive members of society. I spent a long while after finalizing the second divorce figuring out what it means to be single.

• I could eat anything I wanted.
• I could manage my schedule independent of anyone else.
• I could go to bed when I felt like it.
• I had to spend a lot more time by myself and, thus, spend a lot more time reflecting on exactly who I was and who I wanted to be.
• I could spend money on myself. For things like clothes and shoes and a lot of entertainment.
• I could walk around the house naked without feeling like an ape.

Turns out that I didn't become an older version of my college self - I still ate pretty responsibly, I went to bed at decent hours, and my schedule was much more inter-dependent (on work obligations, on theater obligations, with my friends) than I thought. I did buy new shoes, walk around naked and spend freaking HOURS thinking about who I had become and what I wanted to be different. I continued to workout and bought an exercise bike for my office. I had marathon conversations with my big plant.  I went on some dates here and there but wasn't particularly inspired. Spent six weeks dating someone who turned out to be complicated (and a little nuts - in the bad way) but, at least she made me realize that just because my ex-wife didn't want me around, others might.

And I realized that I now had two whole aspects of this relationship thing at play: I like having someone who likes me around and I like my newly minted, crusty around the edges bachelor mode. So. I needed to date.

The problem I was faced with was not a lack of interesting women around or even a lack of interested women around. The problem was that all the women I encountered were either in theater (and, let's face it, that hasn't worked out so well for me) or co-workers (likewise a real dead-end most of the time.)

"...while there are various complex ideas about what it takes to win, there is overwhelming agreement about how you lose: "by betraying a level of emotional enthusiasm unmatched by the other party. Everyone's afraid disarmament won't be mutual." Constant detachment is the rule."

I tried to take my own advice - boy, was that a wash. The only women I ran into were either (you guessed it) theater people in their twenties or co-workers I had crushes on but didn't feel in the "sexual harassment" world that I even wanted to dip into that potential minefield. After a lot of soul searching, I bit the bullet. After all, those sidebar ads on FaceBook were constantly reminding me that my status was single and there were amazing women out there, like ripe apples, waiting for my call (or email, or whatever...)

So I threw my info out into the Match.com dating pool to see what was in store.

Here's the basic profile text I wrote:

I am a big personality and have been described as a gorilla in the library. Intense. Enthusiastic. Opinionated. I'm Irish and stubborn as that implies; tenacity is both a virtue and a curse.

I have two tattoos - the first says "DADA ist wie DADA" (DADA is what DADA does) and the second says "Ars Gratia Artis" (Art for Art's Sake). I got both of them in the past two years.

I Believe...

...that, in lieu of trying to find the Right One, working towards being the Right One is more productive and a lot more fun.

...that on the first date, we hide our flaws. As the relationship grows, we hide our disappointments. Once we're committed, we hide our betrayals. When the commitment dissolves, we're left with regrets for hiding anything at all - after all, what was the point?

...that scar tissue means you survived.
_____

Who am I looking for?

Someone with a dark sense of humor, smart as a laser, with eyes that bore into my brain. Someone who likes spending time talking about art and politics and pop culture and the state of the world. Someone who grabs life instead of being grabbed by it; who is strong enough to be able to handle herself but still cries at Pixar movies.

I'm looking for someone who is interested in going and doing things in the world and who can teach me things about the world that I haven't experienced yet.
______

Based upon the seemingly standard Match. com inquiries, here's a few VITAL STATS:

• My pictures were all taken in the last three months or so.

• I don't have a car. Got rid of it in 1998. I wish I could say it was for environmental reasons, but it was mostly the finances. Why have a car in Chicago?

• I really do work out five times a week but I'm not a zealot.

• I have the same wallet that Sam Jackson has in PULP FICTION. Call it my daily affirmation or personal delusion. Either works for me.

• I'm not a creep or a stalker so if you dig what you see and read, let's grab some pie and coffee and check each other out. I'm much better in person.

WHAT FLOATS MY BOAT?

• You're smarter than I am.
• You can tell a joke.
• You don't embarrass easily.

WHAT SINKS MY BOAT?

• The phrase "earning potential" used seriously.
• "Oh. That picture was taken years ago..."
• Close minded political stances of either side of the spectrum.

It evolved a bit over the course of the month, but that's pretty much the gist.

I kept it free for about a week. All of sudden, I'm getting "winks" from some fairly hot women (yes - from Florida and New Jersey, but c'mon - they looked good in the pictures, right?) but in order to communicate with these hotties, I had to pony up $30.00 to have complete access.

And yes. None of these "winkers" were real. Nice ploy, but we all kinda knew that to be the case, didn't we?

Instead of doing the wink thing, I started immediately trolling the site, looking for women my age, that seemed to be possessed of less baggage (one profile talked exclusively about her desire to have children - at least five. She was 45 years old. Jeesh!) and whose photos appealed to me.

Yes - one could call me shallow for insisting that the women I date be physically attractive to me, and if that's shallow, throw those stones my way.

I ran into the typical mismatches -

• The Damaged Woman who I met for breakfast and who showed up looking like she rolled right out of bed and then talked about her physically abusive relationships and how much she hated her job

• The False Advertiser whose online picture was at least ten years old and had since tripled in size

• The Deal Breaker who was definitely looking for a Stud to Give Her Children

• The Gold Digger who was interested until she found out I had very little financial ambition

• The Pro-Torture FOX News "Libertarian"

To be fair, I'm certain that they each have some bizarre capitalized referral to me: "Guy with Obnoxious Blog," "Twice Divorced Guy Who Acts Like a Kid," "No Car Guy."

I also met some really wonderful women who just didn't knock me out but were otherwise great people, funny, smart, attractive. For that matter, even the strange list above were all really nice people - just no click.  No one I "met" or "chatted" from Match.com was awful - just slightly lonely and looking.  Some become professional in the digital pursuit and continually meet people through the service.  Not me.  I canceled my membership after a month. It was an experiment, after all.

I realized in this process that I don't play the Game very well. That, while the idea of being emotionally detached sounds good and gives one the less risky opt out possibilities, I'm too wildly enthusiastic and tend to "live my life out loud" too much to really be emotionally smart. Unlike quite a few, I really still have an enormous amount of love and affection for my ex. I'm also too old to make huge changes in who I am and the way I'm built but I'm finding after two botched attempts at "til death do us part" that I am at least more open to some changes than either of my wives found possible.  No regrets but lessons, yeah?

Here's the thing. Romance is bound to bring up insecurities, anxieties and heartbreak, no matter how or when the game is played.

And sure, digitally enabled mating culture can mean certain new anxieties, like being paralyzed by too much choice. But everything has a cost. And in this case, there are far more benefits.

In the world of instant gratification, of an abundance of choice, commitment really means something. A second date is a big deal. As is picking someone, for however long it lasts. As is celebrating an anniversary.

Did I meet someone?  Let's put it this way, if I did, she probably doesn't want to be mentioned on this blog and I suppose that's fair.  I figure that I'm going to relax and enjoy the ride - this last year and half taught me that I'm fine being single and I'm pretty good at it. On the other hand, I'm an optimist at heart. And maybe that's what makes dating digitally a positive.

Sometimes you toss those dice and win.  But you only win if you toss the dice.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]