Although I was highly skeptical, last August, at the urging of a good friend, I started an account on the online dating site OKcupid.com. I chose this specific site because I was told you could filter by what you want—long-term or short-term dating, activity partners, casual sex, etc. What I really wanted was to find some nice, interesting people to meet up for lunch or to go to the movies with—in short, to make some new friends. I was careful with completing my profile, namely because I felt so self-conscious. Online dating? Really? Is this what grad school has done to my social life?
To my surprise, the next day I woke up to find that fifteen people had already messaged me, and as I read through my messages, my perception of online dating began to change. I was actually learning something about myself—namely, that I’m a hit with lesbians and men in their forties. (Not that there’s anything wrong with lesbians and middle-aged men, but they aren’t quite the demographic I was aiming for.)
My first week on the site, I began talking to one guy who seemed nice. He's working on a master's in computer programming and has a job in his field. He punctuated properly 95% of the time (a big plus for me, true English major that I am). As we chatted online, I wondered if maybe this online dating thing might not be so bad.
That was before I realized he was Lady Gaga in disguise. One minute we were carrying on a normal IM conversation. Then suddenly he started asking me about my teeth—had I ever had any cavities? How many? In which tooth? That was weird, but I let it slide. People have odd interests, right? And besides, he was the first person who messaged me in true English rather than Ebonics; I couldn’t let a little thing like a cavity-obsession ruin our new friendship. But the harder I tried to shift the conversation, the more persistent he became. Finally, he asked me to send him pictures of my teeth. When I said no, he asked me to send him pictures of my unsuspecting roommate’s teeth.
“I think that would be awkward,” I replied.
“No, no. It’s all in how you ask,” he insisted. “You’re good with words.”
“No, no. It’s all in how you ask,” he insisted. “You’re good with words.”
“No, that would definitely be awkward. I’m pretty sure she’d think it was weird if I said, ‘Hey, let me snap a pic of your pearly whites to send to this guy I met online.’”
“Please? Just one picture?”
At this point, I closed out the chat window and decided to stop talking to him.
A few days later I was messaged by another man, only at first I wasn't sure he was a man; in his profile picture he was wearing a black leotard with a hot pink tutu-like skirt, and had long hair and breasts. Great, I thought. You just can’t shake some of these lesbians, can you? But as I read his profile, it became apparent that he is in fact a man; other revealing pictures made that decidedly clear. The first thing he mentions on his profile is that he used to think he was bisexual, but after trying with a few different men, he decided he needed to stick to women. Not trying to be judgmental here, but I just can’t hang with that. I mean, how humiliating would it be if I was seen in the mall with a guy who styles his hair better than I do?
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