Losing It

Tonite's the nite.

I'm going to lose my eHarmony virginity.

I am mere minutes away from meeting my first eHarmony match in person for a dinner date. The excitement! The anticipation! The dread...

Actually, I'm not really dreading it at all (except that it's one more nite playing instead of working on my upcoming move--but maybe that means I'm just dreading all the extra work that will be waiting for me tomorrow rather than dreading the date itself).

You might be wondering, "Is this lucky fella one of those aforementioned gun enthusiasts?" I think you know the answer to that! He is a business owner, a little older than me and a passionate golfer. He has no kids (bonus!) and he doesn't want any kids (double bonus!!). (People often think it is hypocritical of me to prefer dating men without children, but my lovely blessings are nearly grown and I do NOT want to start over. In addition, I am not looking for someone to complete my family, and I don't really want to fill that role for anyone else.)

I must admit that, overall, eHarmony is much improved over my first venture in 2005. I only got four (4!!!) matches in three months and by the time I could actually email the only one that was even a remote possibility, I had already lost interest due to the slow and cumbersome "guided communication" that was meant to identify if we were soul mates based on the "29 dimensions of compatibility" that would miraculously reveal themselves through the insightful questions we were forced to use to communicate, such as "What is your greatest fear about marriage?"

This time I have received many matches, and those that aren't gun-toting psychopaths or obviously still damaged from their last heartbreak (The one thing Rex can't live without is HONESTY, FAITHFULNESS and LOYALTY or The one thing Stewie is looking for in a partner is NO MEDICATIONS) are actually pretty appealing. I have made contact outside of eHarmony (believe me, that is an IMPORTANT distinction) with about five guys.

And now I am, miraculously, on the verge of finding out if there is, indeed, life out there.

This morning I took extra care getting ready--making sure to employ (or is it deploy) every weapon in my arsenal of beautification: push-up bra (who knew how handy these things could be?), eyelash curler, blush, blow dryer, flatiron and (the Rebecca twist on nearly every outfit) boots. I left the house looking fresh, flirty and fabulous!

The weather didn't realize I had a date.

I have been (in no particular order) windblown, rained on and pelleted with hail. I now look like a haggard, drowned rat that has really cool boots.

I guess if it really is all about those 29 dimensions of compatibility, it won't matter...I'll know in about 30 minutes.

Stay tuned!

Guns, Trucks and Dating

It gets more and more difficult to choke down those eHarmony commercials as they continue to send me men who, when asked "What are you most passionate about?" answer "hunting." AND who, when listing the three things they can't live without, make sure that at least two of them are guns and their truck. (Oh yes, it is possible to make more than two answers out of that, for instance: guns, my truck, and hunting in my truck OR my truck, my gun rack, my guns in my gun rack in my truck while I'm hunting OR (my favorite) my truck, my guns and the 2nd amendment.)

I think it is just fine if people are hunters who like driving around in their big, muddy trucks with guns; however, I am not (and will never be) interested in dating them.

It disturbs me that eHarmony goes on and on about their sophisticated, scientific matching profile technology and then thinks that someone who lists a glass of wine, a good book and a hot bath as the three things she can't live without would want to be dating someone from the tea party militia. Super-scientific matching mumbo jumbo be damned! I don't care if we are both Christian and extroverts. It ain't gonna happen!

These scruffy, lovable hunters also post pictures of themselves in fatigues or camouflage of some sort next to their mud-caked truck;, often holding their guns--and there's always some kind of giant, hunting hound standing off to the side.

This is what happens when you ask a microchip to go man-shopping for you. There has to be some geeky nerd out there who can program the system to take into account the personality profile AND keywords listed in the "In My Own Words" sections that you are able to fill out on your own. Because if the best they can do is put someone who says what they're looking for in another person is "good conversation and wit" with someone who says they're looking for "FAITHFULLNESS and loyilty" then I may as well just throw in the eHarmony towel right now...but it's pretty damn entertaining (if not a little bit sad) in the meantime.

No Man's Land

The strangest thing has happened. Every guy I meet in real life that I'm even slightly interested in is more suited to dating one of my daughters than me. If I could meet someone over 25 that I found attractive and interesting it would be a frickin' miracle.

Conversely, I find myself longing for more airtime from the likes of Dr. Drew Pinsky, Jon Stewart and Anderson Cooper. Ooooooh, those silver foxes are irresistible!

So, I find myself sort of alone in my late 30's. I don't know if it's a Utah thing or not, but I am in a dead zone.

I have no bars.

It's a desert.

Terri (jokingly ?) offered to pay for me to go on eHarmony and give it another go. I have a fervent and abiding hatred for eHarmony. Its commercials belong on the boat with Miley Cyrus, Tyler Perry and Nicholas Sparks. The boat whose bottom I plan to drill a hole through. Far from shore. Possibly in shark-infested waters.

Unbeknownst to my beloved friend, I went ahead and took their little personality profile, posted my pic and signed up for the tedious purgatory of eHarmony. My major problem with them is that you can't freely browse the merchandise. You have basically filled out a questionaire and are now trusting some personal shopper you've never even met to pick out your summer wardrobe. How can they possibly know what will suit you?

Terri thinks I should do this because it's exactly what I don't normally do. Which, given my track record, I can't argue with. I just hate not being in control.

Only time will tell if the cheesy (and utterly exasperating) promises made in those eHarmony commercials will ring true for me. But here's hoping. (I think!)

Is it possible that somewhere in the eHarmony universe there's life out there...only time will tell.

The Real Mr. Sticca

I have explored nearly every method of dating known to modern woman: match.com, eharmony, nearly every other dating website, personal ads (I only answered one--didn't place one), meeting someone at work (SO not recommended!), and speed dating. On the whole, my experiences have not been too bad; however, they are quite regularly, hilarious. I count myself pretty lucky in that regard. Not all modern daters emerge unscathed.

While checking my email the other day a message from a guy that I had one date with almost two years ago (yet he continues to spam me with "funny" forwarded emails)caught my attention. Usually, I don't even read his messages before deleting them, but for some reason this one peaked my curiosity. The subject line read, "The Real P. Sticca."

I opened the message and the first line read, "This message is not from P. It is about him." From there, the woman writing the message launches into a description of how she was searching for a good man to love, and how that search had led her to P. I thought perhaps it was going to be one of those sappy online dating success stories just waiting to be featured on an eharmony commercial. I was wrong.

Apparently she had been dating P for a while, had introduced him to her three-year-old daughter, had opened up her heart to the possibility of love, etc. But P was not on the same page. P was reading an entirely different book. Therefore, she had decided to do the opposite of an eharmony commercial and let the world know exactly what kind of man she had found online in P.

The woman had suspicions about P's fidelity, so she did the only thing she could do: searched his computer for incriminating evidence. She found an Excel spreadsheet with at least 80 women listed, ranked, and categorized. This was not, according to the woman, your typical little, black book with names, contact info, and possibly a few stars next to his favorites. It was a checklist with things he had done to and with each woman; notes like "new boobs" "psycho" "rebound" "nice but maybe too old" "fatter than pic"; and categories such as Heavy Rotation, On the Outs, Unf---able, Desperate Measures, etc. ranking the status each woman holds in his world. The title of the spreadsheet was "New Meat SLC."

I have to disclose that this guy was no prize. I did not have any interest in seeing him again, and only didn't block his continual forwarded emails because I am lazy. He wasn't the worst person I have met online, but he was the worst of all things in my dating criteria: short. Maybe this exercise in labeling and categorizing women was his defense mechanism for having to stand on tiptoes to see eye to eye with the women he meets. He was pretty aggressive as well, which turned me off immediately. I was never unclear as to what his intentions were.

This poor woman; however, (probably less bitter and cynical than I)was taken in and felt that ultimate betrayal of not only unrequited love, but deception. I have also been deceived in matters of love, and I know the sting. I have to admire her quick action to unmask the creep and destroy any future rendezvous P had in mind for those of us on his list. I, too, have felt the undeniable impulse to administer a public form of humiliation as punishment for catching a boyfriend cheating on me. I have wanted to buy a billboard with his picture and warn women to stay away; blanket all the parking lots he frequents with fliers about his deepest secrets and prominently display an aerial shot of the balding head he was so insecure about; take out an ad in all the local papers listing his sins against me and others (again, featuring the bald shot), write letters to his children letting them know who their father is and encouraging them to find different a different role model for masculinity.

But I did not do these things. I did not want to give this man one more spec of my time, energy, heart, or soul. I liked to think of myself as mature and having achieved some level of transendence over petty revenge scenarios. I was getting the best revenge: living well, moving on, dating much cuter and younger men with full heads of hair. But my glee at receiving this woman's email makes me wonder if I have just been kidding myself. Even now, I feel a rush of pleasure as I imagine plastering the bastard's bald head all over the place with a public service announcement to all women: Take heed! Meet the REAL Assface (as I have referred to him ever since).