Online shopping for a date

Most of you reading this probably know that I love online shopping.  It's the ultimate shopping experience for people who hate schlepping through overheated malls, and for those who enjoy getting stuff in the mail.  I get really excited when something is addressed to me and it's not a bill -- or Mount Sinai Hospital trying to make me feel charitable because they removed my appendix back in '08 and a "thank you" wasn't enough.

Anyway, searching for a date on a website is a lot like browsing an online store.  If you don't know exactly what you're looking for, you can just browse until you find something that catches your eye.  If you do know what you're looking for, you can do a really detailed database search with multiple filters and a taxonomy, then narrow the scope and then -- voila!  Add to cart.

Answer's to Friday's matching game

Well, it looks like Friday's contest was a really tricky one!  Nearly everyone guessed that the dirty-looking tattooed guy was the former chef though.  Nicely done!

Here are the answers:

     1. Who's the Jane Austen fan?  E
     2. Whose tagline reads "Get captured..."?  B
     3. Which one likes to "conversate on intelectual topiks"?  A
     4. Who used to be a chef?  C
     5. Which one is looking for "a woman who isn't down to earth"?  D

I think 'D' might be my favourite of the bunch. He's a 25 year old exotic dancer from Calgary, seeking someone as high maintenance as he is. Also, I think he might be wearing his Policeman costume in that photo -- there's a flashlight stuck to his pants.

Stay tuned for this week's Friday matching game!

My date with Kyle

On Friday night I met Kyle (from Match.com) for a drink at a nearby pub.  It wasn't the greatest date, but it probably would have made an amazing sitcom episode.

My plan was to walk to the pub and get there a bit early so I'd have time to cool down before he arrived.  (Yes, walking in the cold still makes me overheat.)  So imagine my horror when I got a text from Kyle just as I was leaving my apartment.  He was already there!  I didn't want him to have to wait long so I speed-walked the whole way.  In high-heeled boots.  Any attempt at arriving without looking like I'd just come from the gym went out the window.

I need a stylist

Before I get into my date with Kyle, I want to write a short post about the difficulties of knowing what to wear on a date.  Last night I had a bit of a meltdown when I realized that dating requires its own wardrobe!  I pulled out a million things from my closet and everything was either something I would wear to the office, or something too formal, or something I bought and then forgot about because I have no business wearing it.  In the end I chose a navy wrap dress that I wear to work all the time.

Help me readers!  What do you wear on a first date to the pub?

PS -- Remember that dress I ordered from Macy's?  It arrived yesterday and it's going right back!  It made me look like a really sparkly linebacker.  (I've now learned a very important lesson about cap sleeves.)

It's a contest! TGIF!

Apparently some people don't know about shirtless bathroom photos -- clearly people who have never been on a dating site.  The shirtless bathroom photo is usually obvious because you can see either a shower curtain, toilet, or towel bar in the background.   This genre of photo is found on all sites, but especially on Plenty of Fish. 

I've scoured the site this week to bring you these 5 douchebags winners.  I felt like a total creep but it was in the name of research.  (You're welcome.)  I've cropped the heads out to protect their identities, but I get the feeling they wouldn't care even if they read this.

The Rock Star Effect

Remember the other day when I thought last night's party was going to be a swanky music industry thing?  Yeah, well it wasn't.  It was a seriously lame office party for some solar energy company, hosted by a London radio station that no one has ever heard of.  So no, I didn't see any celebrities.  And may I just say, when radio personalities say they have a "face for radio", they're not kidding.  It's a real thing.

The party was at the Intercontinental Hotel.  It didn't take me long to figure out I was a bit overdressed.  When I got to the coat check I promptly gave myself a hasty make-under:  I shook out my hair, shoved my blingy costume jewellery in my purse, and put my glasses on.  I'm SO glad the sequined dress I ordered from Macy's to wear to this event hadn't arrived yet -- I totally would have looked like an escort.

Scott: All backswing, no follow-through

Lunch break!  Time for another post!  This one is going to be about Scott.  The long and the short of it is, I can't figure out what he wants with me.  He comes out of nowhere (like a bike messenger on Queen Street) and then we always talk on the phone for at least an hour.  He's flirty, he's funny, he alludes to things we should do sometime in the near future, and then he goes AWOL.  It could be days, maybe weeks, until I hear from him again.

If I wasn't so smitten with him, I would have written him off a long time ago.  He's just so charming!  Other pluses in the Scott column include:  he's corporate by day, but musician by night (like me!), he comes from a WASPy background of skiing and golf holidays (like me!), and from what I've seen of his pictures, the man is gorgeous.  This is why I give him way more chances than I should.

A Farewell to Ah-nold

In this case, it was just a vibe I was getting.  The more I talked to him on msn, the stronger it got.  My gut instinct was basically just that we weren't compatible.  We come from different worlds, for one thing. 

There's also the matter of how he kept bringing up his ex.  That in itself is a red flag I think, but when he kept saying how awful she was and how she ruined his life, I got a bit overwhelmed with what was obviously some major baggage.

Last minute rescheduling & Dress Stress

Good morning!  I know a few of you will be disappointed to hear that my coffee date with Arnold didn't go as planned.  I had to reschedule because my grocery delivery was running really late, and I was stuck at home until they arrived.  (Just for the record, getting your groceries delivered is FANTASTIC.  I highly recommend it.  They're not usually late.)

I called Arnold (still making a conscious effort not to pronounce it Ah-nold) and he was really gracious about rescheduling.  I felt like a major doofus.  Also, Arnold's crazy-strong Hungarian accent went a long way in explaining his name -- it's definitely not a name common to my generation of Canadians.  I thought perhaps it was a family name that he was unlucky enough to be saddled with, like how my poor cousins got stuck with Strachan and Seton.  (I wish I was kidding.)

Dear Match.com - enough with the alerts already!

I have a new iPhone, so like most people new to apps, I downloaded a whole bunch right away.  (Yes, I'm the last person in the world to get into Angry Birds.)  One of these apps was the Match.com one.

I really wish I hadn't.

Every dating site contains a group of people who I'm convinced don't sleep.  These men (although there are probably women like this too) just troll the site all night and send 'winks' willy-nilly to anyone who catches their eye.  Ever since downloading the Match.com app I've been woken up by my phone about 3 times a night...

BBPeople - A jerk drove me to it

A while ago I got a really nasty email on Plenty of Fish.  It kind of went something like this:

       From: jerkface53
       Subject: hey
       Message: you should lose 40 pounds. you'd get more dates

Some people could probably just delete this message without a second thought.  I mean, it's not like this guy was some Adonis - there's no way his inbox is overflowing.  But I couldn't forget it.  Instead of just passing over my profile like a normal person, this guy took the time to send me that message, probably thinking he was doing me a huge favour.  Like he was telling me something I didn't already know.

How you doin?

On any given day, I kid you not, I receive a message from someone that contains those exact words.  Here it is everyone, the message that is least likely to get a response.  Here's one I just got five minutes ago.

        From: Motorhead88

        Subject: Hey

        Message: How you doin?

Yep, it's Joey's quote from Friends.  Sometimes there's variations, like "u" instead of "you", or maybe just no punctuation, but it comes up SO OFTEN.

eHarmony? It can't be real science.

Some people have asked me why I didn't sign up for eHarmony, since I've basically signed up everywhere else.  I have done eHarmony before though, on one of those free trial weekends. After the painful process of answering all their personality questions, I was hoping they would deliver some really accurate matches.  That's far from what happened. 

My Match.com experiences

Hello reader(s)!  (I think I might be up to 3 now!  Awesome!)

Match.com is the most recent site I've joined.  It's only been about 3 days actually.  I guess I should review one of the others first, but I felt totally inspired to write about how much I like this one.  The downside is that it's not free, but the upside is that there are some seriously good looking men on here!

Or is that what they want me to think?  It did seem a bit suspicious that my first 11 matches (that they send daily) were men that could be catalogue models.  Maybe they have a feature that pushes the most popular/handsome men at you first, to get you to register.  If that's the case, I totally got suckered in.  Sigh.

OkCupid - So far, so good!

The dating site OkCupid was reccommended to me by an American friend of mine.  I'd never heard of it so maybe it's more popular there.  This is another free site, so I immediately expected to see the sort of juiced up, shirtless in the bathroom mirror photos that Plenty of Fish is so famous for -- but there weren't any!  Just normal-looking, fully clothed men!

I've been on this site about a month and from what I can tell it attracts a totally classier crowd than POF.  Not to mention, the interface is a thousand times nicer to use... sorry, I'm an IT nerd and had to throw that in.  It might also be fair to say that OkCupid attracts a somewhat off-beat crowd.  By that I mean, well, I've run across lots of musicians, artists and graphic designers, computer guys, guys in the film and TV industry, and aspiring writers.  There are also men in more traditional finance or trades jobs, but I think you'll notice a big Arts demographic -- moreso than on POF.

This guy takes the cake

You might be wondering why the sudden push to start online dating.  The simple answer is that I just wasn't meeting guys in my day to day life.  Sure I've had friends try to set me up, but the results of that have always ended up in disaster.  This is one such disaster from this past summer.

I don't remember the exact day this date took place, but it was right in the middle of the worst heat wave Toronto has ever seen.  I had a date with Tim the statistician, a set up from a particularly keen matchmaker.  My main objectives during this dinner date were to be charming, flirty, and to avoid sweating into my dinner.  (I'm definitely one of those girls that sweats.  I don't 'glow' like some lucky bitches.)

Plenty of Fish seems very 'catch and release'

Ok, let's review Plenty of Fish.  Right up front, I knew signing up to this free dating site would be an adventure.  It has a reputation for being the seediest site, likely because it's free.  It seems like the site people sign up with just to hook up.  There are the typical shirtless bathroom photos in abundance!  (People still do that?  Ew.)

Anyway, my first night creating a profile I got a bunch of messages right away, but they were a bit odd.  One was a foot fetishist, and some were old, and none of them posted pictures.  When people don't post pictures I totally assume they're unattractive.  Is that wrong?

Well, here goes nothing...

I've been single for three years, and in that time I've been on probably four dates.  Four terrible, terrible dates.  But the stories to come out of them were great!  So in an attempt to get more dates (and maybe meet Prince Charming?) I've signed up to online dating.

Ok, actually I've signed on to 6 dating sites.  If you're going to put yourself out there, why not go all the way, right?  On this blog you'll get to keep track of the progress I'm making on each.