O' Canada, O' Canada!

I finally reached my 50th view on match.com and as I promised myself, I purchased a paying membership for 3 months. Woo-hoo! Let the games begin. After my credit card was approved, I unlocked the gates to the magical kingdom. I could now see who had been viewing me and could actually start contacting the thousands of unsuspecting women in my metro area.

The first thing I did was see who viewed me. Not bad, quite a few cuties in that list. The second thing I did was check my email. I had received four emails. Before I payed for membership I received these emails but with a decade of internet experience and a lifetime of capitalism drilled in my brain, I suspected they were fake emails sent by match.com to lure me into spending my hard earned gold.

As it turned out, they were quite real with real questions from real woman asking about the real me. I carefully read each one, three or four times, checked out their pics and read their profiles. Then something caught my eye. I knew this was too good to be true. They were all from different States, hundreds of miles away. One wasn't even the same country. She was from Canada. That's right, maple syrup, hockey, free medical care and geese, Canada.

You wouldn't know her, she lives in Canada

Actually, I don't live too far from Canada. I emailed the other three explaining that even though I appreciate the response, I am not interested in dating anyone that requires a layover and luggage. I responded to Canada girl and re-read her profile. Turns out we have a lot in common, almost too much in common. In fact she is my clone, my doppelganger, except with boobs. Same age, same job, same interests, same hobbies, just about everything, except she is in fucking Canada.

I emailed her back with this observation and we chatted back and forth that night. Turns out, she is pretty cool, either that or I really like myself. She said she does travel to my area a few times a month and asked me to meet her next weekend. So just like that, I have my first date from match. I secretly hope we don't hit it off because well, she lives in fucking Canada!

Bowling alone

I've been trying this wacky online dating thing for two weeks. I'm now convinced that if you only limit yourself to online dating interactions you'll either go quietly insane from frustration if you're a man or if you're a woman, start adopting cats to screen your emails. Online dating should be just one of several tools to increase your chances of finding that special someone who you can endlessly annoy.

Since I'm the type to try anything once (I have the scars to prove it) I decided to join a local singles group on meetup.com. The group page listed all sorts of activities with photos of happy, smiling care-free singles hiking, salsa dancing, speed dating, happy hours, etc. This is exactly what I have been looking for. I can talk to a real live woman without waiting two days for a reply! Sign me up.

I signed up for the next event. I didn't care what it was, I just wanted to try it. The next event was 80's night at a skating rink. I love the 80's but haven't been to a skating rink since...the 80's. 1982 to be exact, my tenth birthday party. This could be really, really fun or I'll end up with broken ankle and an ambulance ride to the nearest hospital. Either way, it'll be an adventure.

Two things I hate. Rollerskating and the Dutch.

I RSVP'ed the event that day and within a few hours I was on my way to the roller rink. My first sign that this could go horribly wrong was all the mini-vans in the parking lot with those annoying family stick figure graphics in the back window. According to the meet up twenty singles were attending and I was to look for a purple balloon near the snack bar. I paid my fee, rented some skates and looked for the balloon and twenty awkward desperate singles trying not to fall flat on their faces. I saw three birthday parties, about a hundred kids, an old school Contra video game that I really wanted to play and there in the corner, five awkward adults but no balloon.

I skated on over, knocking into two kids and almost injuring a third and asked if they were part of the singles group. The lady looked at me rather strange and said "I'm married." "I'm Dave." I said, and skated off. I scanned the room and saw the only other adults were surrounded by birthday presents, kids and they all had large shiny rings declaring their marital status and that exhausted look only parents have. I wobbled on over to the front desk and asked the manager if he heard of a singles group meeting here tonight. He actually scratched his head, as if that helped him think and said "Nope, I reckon I would have heard about that."

So there I was on a Saturday night, a forty year old, single white guy in roller skates, alone, in a dark room with a hundred children. I thought I'd better leave before some overprotective parent called the police on me but not before I played one game of Contra. Not only was I stood up, but I was stood up by twenty people in one night. That's got to be a record.

Psst, little girl. Wanna play some Contra?

The next day, I received an email from meetup asking me to rate my experience. Needless to say my review was not stellar. I ended my one star review with the quote "I guess skating alone is one step higher on the loneliness scale than bowling alone." A few hours later I received a personal email from the event coordinator saying how sorry she was for my misfortune. Apparently since I was so new to the group that I was not yet activated on their email list. They had actually cancelled the event and emailed the entire group... except me. I replied with the attitude of shit happens and said I would attend a future event, one that involved more alcohol and less children.

At least bowling has beer and interesting people

"You're cool" is not an answer.

So earlier this week I sent out ten emails to ten lovely woman. Faced with the sad return rate of 1-3%. I was still optimistic in my ninja skills as a wordsmith though, so I patiently waited. 24 hours later, no response. 48 hours, no response. 72 hours, 3 responses. Wow! 3 replies. Yep, 3 replies from real woman and they were all from the women I wrote. I got the messages at work but couldn't read them until I could log in from home. I felt like a kid on Christmas morning. Sure, there were only three presents under the tree but they were perfectly wrapped and three presents is still better than none. I logged in and opened my presents. Did I get my Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle? Nope, I got socks.

Yeah! Socks!

The first email present I opened consisted of one word..."Hi" The second was a little better. "Thanks for writing." The third one gave me hope. "Greetings and salutations, what brings you online?" Holy crap, this is something I can actually work with, a greeting and an actual question I can answer. Maybe this pair of socks isn't so bad, I needed a new pair anyway.

When I sent my initial emails I ended them with a single question. I figured a witty or interesting question would give someone reason to respond. Notice how two of the replies didn't even bother to answer my initial question and the third answered my question with a question. You might be asking what questions would warrant such a dismal response? I can't tell you that but they were somewhere along the lines of "What do you think an Oompa Loompa smells like?"

They do not smell like cotton candy

I ignored the first two emails but answered the third. I wrote a brief but engaging paragraph describing what brought me to online dating and followed up with a similar question of my own. A few hours my response came back. "You're cool!" First of all, I am cool but not fonzie cool, just kinda cool and second, What?!? Did I not just answer your initial question and ask you a similar question in return? Your supposed to answer my question and perhaps ask a new question in return. This is called a "conversation." It happens when two people do something called "communicate."

I was starting to get a little frustrated and replied back with a "Thanks" and followed up with the same question I had initially asked and a brand new question. That's two questions for her to answer. Anyone can answer one question but two questions might be pushing the boundaries of an online conversation, especially two questions in a single email.

I checked my email before I went to bed that night and saw that she replied. Would she answer at least one of my questions or would she have the intellectual capacity to answer both of them in a single email? Wanna see her entire reply? Here it is:

:-)

Yep, it's an emoticon.

:-)