dear martin, chuck, william, robert, jonathan, thomas, james, david, gary, john, john and john,
it wasn't about you,
honest.
it was i.
as i alluded (okay, stated outright) in a
past entry,
some of us are just too delicate
for the cyber scene.
it began with those valentine's weekend
ads (aimed at desperate folk, not i); they sucked me in.
despite having read opinions, forums,
etc, etc, which cursed the whole gig,
and having
started and stopped creating my "profile" (sounds so criminal)
months ago,
i succumbed.
within two days
i was sent about three
dozen matches.
most every one of them sounded like a nice guy
who described themselves as "RATIONAL".
now, did i lie on the 2 million question survey i had to answer to get on this service?
did my doppelganger overtake my amygdala and wipe out any trace of my true homicidal tendencies?
"RATIONAL" is not even in my supplemental vocabulary
and certainly not part of my surface psyche.
i only recall lying consciously ONCE on the interminable questonnaire.
now i forget the lie.
oh, yeah....and an alias, so what,
everyone lies in cyberspace.
btw, this blog is unadulterated nonfiction,
i am so proud this is the one place
i don't lie and feel as though i actually
am in my body 100%.
my virtual journey: pure purgatory.
when i received some "icebreaker" communiques
i froze like a gazelle
in the headlights.
didn't know the rules;
they appeared overbearingly linear
and too RATIONAL for me
to fathom.
didn't have the foggiest
notion what to click or
how to smash ice back.
so i kept running away
from my inbox.
repeatedly i said:
"i gotta get out"
instead of my customary
iamthelotusblossom mantra,
but like the family business or Satan,
they kept pulling me back in.
until the straw
that broke it all.
monday a.m.:
around 10:00 EST
i find more matches have been sent
that morning around 3:00 EST.
addicted to click,
i did and
recoiled
in horror:
CLOSED
CLOSED
CLOSED
CLOSED
CLOSED
CLOSED
six of the new guys
had ended our
relationship
before it ever
began.
the shame.
the rejection,
the urge to voodoo
whoever was responsible
for the empty promise of love
without membership fees
made forty time a day
the preceding week on channel 10.
looking back,
i can say it was not
a total loss.
i learned some things:
1) i am a name-bigot: exotic-with-questionable-phonetics first names sans photos gave me great cause for pause, despite my own numerous exotic aliases used over a lifetime of faux-incognito existence. (and i, a foreign language major, the shame....)
2) a "love of nature" in a man on a dating site does not always mean "i don't care if you sleep with your dog, that's just great." the men i was sent mainly kept hunting dogs somewhere on the property. and (sorry to be so
tautological {feb 19})
guns.
3) unlike my chloe, who appeared magically on the monitor one morning as soon as i clicked on "senior cats" at the local shelter, it might not be so slick and simple this time. she came home to stay right away. (i knew she was The One in a heartbeat, you could see it in the pixels of her eyes. we are feline or is that felonious soulmates.)
4) stick with smaller, cheaper, less rational sites that appear to attract your own peeps:
making pet play dates and discussing the virtues of the
new open acrylic line might be more up my alley.
then again, maybe that will prove too much for me as well, but it's a good thought for others.
5) post the real you. as i said to friend/big brother/mentor/guy with a lot of roles for a lot of people,
Dale,
i'm not couching it anymore; going to show the real deal: bumps, style missteps and all. in his wisdom, he suggested to just direct prospects to this blog - cut to the chase.
so here i am, guys:
