21st Century Digital Dating

It’s been two days…should I call her? Our dinner went pretty well. There weren’t any first-date awkward moments or slip-ups. I didn’t say anything offensive about her tacky giant glitter belt. I smelled good. She smiled enough. Maybe I should text her – it’s much less intrusive than a call. But maybe she’ll think that’s too unobtrusive. She said she has a lot of military friends. I don’t think I like that. She was cute but really close to having a uni-brow…I wonder if she caught me staring. She must have caught me staring at her boobs they were as explicit as our waiters haughty attitude. I guess I could email her. I don’t know that seems a little informal, (Please fill out this survey if you would like a second date. Questions 5 – 20 involve the topic of sex. PLEASE DO NOT SKIP Questions 5 – 20!!) That’s ridiculous. There are way too many options here. Damn it! I’ll just call her.

“Hello”

“Hi, it’s Rick…from the other night”

“Oh hi Rick…how are you?”

“I’m good, I’m good. Um I was just calling to say I had a good time the other night. It was fun. I’m still laughing about the waiter peppering your salad even though you insisted he didn’t. Haha…”

“Oh yeah.”

(Pause)

“Um so yeah, I was wondering if you wanted to get dinner again or maybe go to the park?”

“Well actually Rick I’ve been thrown into another really busy work week. We’ve got a lot of tight deadlines so I’m not going to be able to get out much.”

(Pause)

“Oh ok, that’s cool, well how about you just give me a call if you’re up for doing anything after your busy week.”

“Sure, I will, well I’ve actually got to get back to work now but thanks for the call.”

“Sure no problem…”

Damnit! I just spent sixty bucks on dinner for nothing! Busy with work my ass. What went wrong? Maybe I called too soon? We had good conversation the whole time. I even snuck in a ‘You’re cute in your pics but your even cuter in person’ line! Damnit! I hate match.com. I know the problem here. She probably has five other dates from match lined up this week alone. Grrr!

Ok, maybe I’m just a little angry, but I’ve gone on more than a handful of these match dates now and they’ve all ended about the same. I know not everyone will click romantically on the first date but come on? I can’t be that bad!? Anyway, rather then spend countless hours dissecting my personality and appearance and aimlessly searching for answers to who I am and why I’m single at twenty-five I’d much rather just blame society. Yes, I think my sour luck in the dating world is merely because of too many options…

I’m sure it sounds ridiculous too have TOO many options. But just think about it. Has this ever happened to you: Your hanging out with a group of your friends and you decide to order pizza. You find out what everyone wants but can’t decide on toppings? What to do?? Hey, let’s all decide to pick one topping each and just have a medley of miss-matched pizza madness. Sounds like fun right? Wrong! Once you take that first bite of mushroom, pineapple, anchovy (someone always wants anchovy!), banana pepper, spinach, and arugula pizza you know why too many options are a terrible idea. It doesn’t even taste like pizza anymore. It all just melds together into some bitter, crunchy, salty, ungodly mess. Dating is a little different yes, but you’re left with the same result…maybe a little less crunchy and salty.

We are living in a 21^st century digital day. The Internet runs the world and cell phones are so popular that it’s hard to find a fourth grader without one. We have communication opportunities today that were never imaginable thirty years ago. Emails. Text’s. Ebay. Online Banking. It’s possible to live completely within your household and never have to leave, ever. And think about the dating opportunities. You’re able to choose from a multitude of online dating sites and options to find your ‘match.’ You can choose from region, age, race, size, likes, dislikes, and plenty of other options all online without any obligations. How great is that?! You don’t have to waste money and suffer embarrassing rejection in the superficial bar/club scene. You don’t have to meet random guys/girls running on the treadmills at the gym as you struggle to breathe let alone start up conversation. And you don’t have to throw out lame pick up lines to total strangers like, “Hi, I like your glasses” or “Hi, I like your hair” or “Hi, I like your shirt” (Yes I am actually that bad at pick up lines) Anyway, online dating is nearly stress free and there are so many options!

But, there lies the problem. When you have a number of dates lined up on match, or e-harmony, or another dating site it’s no big deal if the first one or two aren’t perfect. You’ve got plenty to choose from. When you don’t find your ‘Prince Charming’ or that ‘Sweet innocent ‘bad girl’ that you always envisioned you don’t have to worry. You can just skip to the next date and the next after that. But, do you ever really know what you’re skipping?

In this 21^st Century digital dating game there seems to be a lack of focus. How can you be fully dedicated to one date when you’ve got several others lined up? Isn’t it possible you could pass up the person of your dreams and not realize it? Let me put it this way; have you ever played slots at the casino before? You start at the ‘Cops & Robbers Big Bank Bucks’ slot machine (the one where three Billy clubs whacking a criminal across and diagonal is a 30 to 1 pay off.) You stay for a few turns and have a little luck but before long you move to another machine. Next up: ‘Animal Safari Cash Explosion’, and after that ‘The Haunted Ghosts in Jackpot Mansion’ all louder and flashier than the one before and all with minimal success. But you keep moving to the next one and the next one and the next in hopes of that big pay off. You move down the line until you get to the very end, ‘Arabian Desert Dollars Deluxe’, and you put in that last dollar. The slots spin and the machine pops, beeps, bleeps, and blings but you come up empty. You spent your last buck and are left with nothing. As you walk back empty handed you pass ‘Cops & Robbers Big Bank Bucks’ and what happens? Oh yeah it pays off and it pays off BIG but instead of you it’s some skinny ass redneck with a pit-stained ‘I Love NY’ t-shirt and sweat-laced, moldy trucker cap! I hate that shit!

So the moral of this whole convoluted blog is: Don’t let that redneck take your true love! Don’t be tempted by the many options on match, or e-harmony, or the rest of them. Who cares about rules of texting or emailing or smoke signals or whatever you use. Dating in the 21^st century gives us too many options and leads us astray. Focus on one and make it count. Focus on that one guy or girl you see in the library every Monday and make them your only option. Focus on the cute bank teller that you leave work early in hopes of catching before their shift ends and make them your only option. Focus on that one person and who knows maybe you’ll hit that jackpot. As for me, there’s a girl who works the counter at the gym I’ve been too nervous to talk to. I think I’ll stop in, maybe tell her I like her glasses. (What? It has to work at some point!).