First Contact

I have now checked my stupid profile hourly.  Feeling shittier as time passes when I get no response.  Granted I did answer the emails at just after 6am.  People go to work on weekdays still, right?

I try to keep busy.  Checking my Instagram and Facebook play Candy Crush and Candy Mania, which is a far superior game in my opinion then its predecessor by the way.   I answer emails regarding cake orders, vacuum the entire second floor of my home and begin prep for what will be the most brutal of baking weeks for me.  It’s now only 9:04am. 

I now second guess my response to these dudes and want to smack my head repeatedly against the wall.  Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned I was a mom of three or that I love food way too much?  Shit.  Maybe the details of my cancer wasn’t the most appropriate thing to mention right off the bat?  I suck.  I’m going to have a full time relationship with my detachable shower head and alternate my imaginary escapes between my collection of smut books and Harry Potter fan fiction.

I purposely never added the dating site apps to my phone or iPod.  If I am this manic now about checking for responses can you imagine if I had it on my mobile devices?  Disaster.  I decide that I better get myself deep into my baking.  Get into the zone and blast some Justin Bieber (Yes.  I listen to the Biebs.  He’s a punk-ass douche but I like his tunes and if I were 16 years old again I’d have highly inappropriate dreams about him) and try not to obsess.

It’s 2:17pm.  I have time to kill between my cakes baking in the oven so with baited breath I check my profile…

DING!  DING!  DING!  DING! DING!

Two new replies.  I exhale and open the emails…

The first is from the older gentleman aka ‘OG’.  He thanks me for the email, tells me that he is happy that I have kids as he has a son the same age as my youngest.  He also says that my disability does not bother him and says, “You are curvy and have a Mona Lisa smile.  I think you’re gorgeous.”  I want to tell you that the best part of that sentence was that he properly contracted ‘you are’ as ‘you’re’ NOT ‘your’.  Then I thought, me and gorgeous in the same sentence?  OG is really working it for a piece of ass! 

Rico Suave dude replies back telling me that we will be trouble together since we are both foodies.  Then asks if I like wine.  Then BAM.  His phone number.  Then suggests we go on a culinary adventure together.  This guy didn’t waste anytime.

Flirty.  I liked it.

I replied to OG and told him he made me blush when he said I was gorgeous and that it was nice he had a son the same age as my youngest.  He mentioned in his email that he was going to Nova Scotia.  I told him I loved it there and asked whereabouts he was staying and to have a lobster for me. 

The true nature of my naivety totally showed itself when I replied back to Rico Suave.  I told him I know nothing about wine, just that I like it sweet and that ice wine makes me weak in the knees.  Oh fuck.  Did this guy run with that!  I seriously did not think that statement had any innuendo to it.  In hindsight, it totally was.  I am on a dating site after all.   Amateur move girl.  Amateur move.

Those who know me personally know that I have an above average knowledge of food.  I don’t eat to live.  I live to eat! I wanted to test this dude’s foodie knowledge so I asked him a bunch of food and restaurant related shit to see if Rico Suave was still worth my time.

I send off my responses and make a point not to check the site because I just antagonize myself and I have a shit-ton of baking to do.  It’s not until after 10pm that I check again.

DING!  DING!  DING!  DING!  DING!

I was totally taken aback by what I got from OG. 

Him:

I don't mean to embarrass you or me for that matter. It's probably not appropriate to talk about this sort of thing, but, This is a dating site.... so there's going to be a little bit? Of flirting right? flirting is kind of expected is it not? Smiles

I can tell you this, I am a normal healthy man, especially when it comes to sex and if you are a normal healthy woman and you and I are together, In a committed monogamous relationship, we are going to have a lot of sex! (Well, as much as a couple could knowing there are 3 or 4 children around!) I truly believe you are a gorgeous woman. What can I say.

Okay, I guess that's enough flirting!

Uhhh….Just a bit fucking BOLD, no?  I got the pure heebie-jeebies after reading that and the nice gentlemanly image of this dude I had in my mind went to shit.   It was a complete Ewwwww....gross forever moment.  I immediately shut that shit down like Kanye West did to Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Awards.

Rico Suave’s wasn’t much better:

How bout you give me a text anytime and i'll be more then happy to share all with you....i just find it easier since im not the greatest of writers:P

REALLY?!  Isn’t texting a form of writing?  Shitty phonetic writing but still writing.  I rolled my eyes but he wasn’t as totally creepy as OG.  I offered him my Blackberry PIN that way he would not be able to have access to my actual cell number until I find everything to be kosher. 

Safety first and so begins my “textual” relationship with Rico Suave because I got a BBM from him five seconds after I offered my PIN. 

A Book By its Cover

Online dating begins with the visual. 

When you have a total asshole photo of yourself, what reason is there for someone to bother to click and read your personal profile???

Can I tell you that the amount of shitty pics men have posted as a main profile photo, fucking blows my mind!!  Too dark.  Low quality.  Too far.  Sunglasses on.  Out of focus.  Group shots.  Photo with another woman(SERIOUSLY?!)  Photo with kids(REALLY?!).  Up the nostrils selfie and the best one of all…a goddamn photo of JUST their dog.  No wonder they’re STILL single.

The photographer in me is trying REALLY hard not to be greatly irritated at the sad state of some of these photos.  It just makes the sites I paid to use so much like the free Fishing site I purposely avoided. 

I decided to step up my game with the photos.  I added 5 more images of myself.  Another full body in a super-cute vintage bird print knee length dress where you can clearly see I’m disabled, two completely make-up free head shots as I think men like that shit too and two dolled-up selfies.  A well-rounded selection of perfectly focused, properly lit pictures of me.  Dudes should appreciate the effort I went through.  I may not be the prettiest or able bodied of the bunch but fuck, I put up some quality images.

I had a few views of my profile but when I added the extra photos there was a little more traffic and after 4 days of being a paying member of this seedy and questionable community, I got 5 hits…

They always say, “Never judge a book by its cover.”  I generally try to take this to heart as I would NEVER want someone to do that to me, especially now.  Thusly, with a grain of salt and a big fat deep breath I opened up the emails.

The first three dudes are old.  Dirty old-ass men close to their 70’s!!  WTF?!  My profile clearly states I’m looking for someone between 35-45.  They are not even good-looking silver foxes.  They are the kind of old that qualifies as Anna Nicole Smith material.  Totally asshole of me but I just delete the emails from the seniors.  I know, I know, I may have just flushed a sugar daddy down the drain.   I’m hard up BUT not THAT hard up…yet.

The last two emails come from one gentleman, 51 and another the same age as me.  Neither of them are what I would be physically attracted to (I’ve come to the sad and painful realization that not everyone will look like David Gandy). We have many of the same interests, as per my review of their profiles.  I need to add that they have used one of the many painful photo options I detest. 

{Sigh}.

The email from the older gentleman, aka ‘OG’, was nice.  Harmless actually.  He said he liked my profile and that he was well educated and found me to be a nice person.  My initial reaction was that he was a little old but in comparison to the grandfathers, this dude was a spring chicken.   The next email came from the dude who was the same age as me.  He was a little more cheesy-Rico Suave in his email.  He asked if I had plans this evening or for the weekend and said I had a nice smile.

It took me 4 days to actually reply to them.  Why?  I was chicken shit.  I also had no fucking clue how to properly respond.  What the hell do I say to a total stranger that won’t make it seem like I am needy and desperate?  They are after all basing their willingness to contact me based on my profile pics and personal profile.

I want to tell you that I did reply to their emails, but both emails took me over 2 hours to write. EACH.  I was a fucking wreck of nerves when I was typing out my replies.  My hands were shaking like I had Parkinson’s and I had a small anxiety attack.  I already know that I’m fucked if I ever go out on an actual date.

I replied to both with a similar yet different response.  I thanked them and told them I was very flattered and gave them a little more info about how I was a single mother and shit and the nature of the cancer I had.

I want to tell you then that after I hit ‘send’, I fucking dry-heaved in my bathroom for a good 10 minutes.

Now I wait for replies.