I’ve gone out with about 20 different people off the internet, mostly Ok Cupid.  I filled up my allotted storage space with messages.  I have answered over 1,400 questions.  I have completed my profile and I have 6 relatively recent and normal-looking pictures up.  I’m a sucker for a high match percent, a height greater than 6’, a genuine compliment, or a distance less than 10 miles.  Two of those will pretty much always get me out the door and to a bar.  My profile is not exceptionally clever, I am not above-average looking, but I seem to get a boatload of messages.  I’m starting to think I should list “Ok Cupid” as one of the things I’m good at on my Ok Cupid profile.

I will probably sound like some kind of monster for saying this, but I really like dating, probably as much as I like being in a relationship.  I don’t really see it as a means to an end.  I think a lot of the aspects of life people tend to agonize over become infinitely more enjoyable if you stop thinking about the end game and enjoy the process.  The concept of deliberately looking for a long term boyfriend makes no sense to me- imagining a relationship style and then seeking out a human person to fit into it can’t possibly lead to anything but disappointment, right?  But then again, that’s also how I bought my house; I didn’t decide to buy a house and then go look for one, I saw one and fell in love with it and decided to buy that house.

I’ve had lots of first dates that were also last dates, but very few were actually unpleasant.  A few short term things that ran their course, a few I still have some contact with, and one long term (9 month) relationship.  I certainly wasn’t looking for something that “serious,” and if I had been I might have ruled him out, probably for the same reasons we ultimately broke up.  One might say that I wasted my time, that I should have had a more specific definition of what I was looking for so that I didn’t end up in a relationship that wasn’t going to last forever.  I have no second thoughts about breaking up, but I think calling it a waste of time is horribly unfair to the relationship, and to him.

And so I find myself setting out on Round 2 of Ok Cupid, feeling a little sheepish when I see people I looked at a year ago, or even people I went out with.  And I feel borderline-creepy when I go out with a guy, and he gets all edgy and whispers conspiratorially, “you know, I never thought I’d be the kind of person who would meet someone off the internet!” 

Really?  Because I always knew that I was exactly that kind of person.