72 hours on OKCupid and I’m already exhausted

You know that saying that we all use to convince ourselves that doing something we’re hesitant about is okay: But everyone is doing it. Maybe we should heed our mother’s pat response of “If everyone was jumping off a cliff, would you do that too?”

I say this because for after years of hesitation, I talked myself into trying online dating because in this day and age, “everyone is doing it!”

This isn’t my first rodeo. I tried online dating back in about 2000, when, if you met someone you liked, you soon discussed and agreed to the lie you’d tell about where you met. There was no way in the world you were going to admit to being one of those losers who needed online dating. One of the thousands and thousands of losers, as it turns out (what were we so ashamed of again?).

Now it’s 14 years later and things have changed. Meeting someone online, friend or otherwise, is just part of life. My Facebook feed is full of content from and about a ton of people I’ve never met in person. Some of whome I probably wouldn’t hesitate to say yes to or even initiate an invitation to meet up for a cup of coffee. As a matter of fact, I’ve done just that  a few times and have met many wonderful people.

So with the stigma of online meetings gone, and EVERYONE doing the online dating thing, including some dear friends, I recently thought, “Why not give it another try?”

This was last Saturday afternoon. I’d been kicked out of my house for a few hours and hanging out with a friend waiting it out, a friend who herself had scheduled a date with a guy she met online. So I downloaded the app, uploaded a couple of photos, began to answer the questions and within seconds, the messages started to roll in.

I put my phone on the table, screen side down and sighed and exasperated sigh.

“What’s wrong?” my friend asked.

“I can’t. I don’t think I can do this. It’s too much.”

In those few minutes (maybe 5, but no more than that) I’d received over 10 messages. Some were too dirty to share here, some were stupid but so oh so tweet worthy. Not because they were funny or interesting, but because that was someone’s attempt at initiating a conversation (I think?).

“Write me a poem, poet girl.” #NotOkCupid

— Libby Juliá-Vázquez (@LibbyJulia) September 29, 2014

“Want to give a younger man a try” #NotOkCupid

— Libby Juliá-Vázquez (@LibbyJulia) September 29, 2014

None of the messages I was receiving were conversational. One guy said hello three different times in a six message exchange. I struggle with idle chit chat, preferring deeper conversations about the real things in life, so know that idle chit chat would be required, I tried to be patient, but it was hard and I was ready to be done. But I had promised myself I would give it a real try and so I continued fielding messages with just a “Hi” or “Hello” and trying to lead them to conversation.

Then there were the 20somethings. Weren’t there any men closer to my age? I don’t like about my age and I only used photos in which I already had my gray hair. I get that there would be a few with the “older woman” fantasy (see Tweet above), but there were sooooo many 20 somethings, it seemed suspect.

Now Tuesday and over a 100 messages later, I felt comfortable enough to have conversations with about 3 men, but still being inundated I decided to check out things online where I could see better than on my phone (don’t laugh). I clicked on my profile, and there it was, the answer: I had mistakenly clicked on Casual Sex as one of the things I was looking for. I let out a little scream “Oh my god, NO!!!” I clicked it and made the checkmark disappear and almost just as quickly, the messages stopped.

My phone stopped vibrating. The silence sounded like crickets in my head. I admit, it stung a little.

It’s now Thursday morning, and last night I was having what I thought were two promising conversations until one invited me to hang out at his place (first meeting) for drinks and the other asked if my using protection was the reason I didn’t have children.

I’ve promised myself a month, and so I trudge on and have invented a new game for myself: “How many messages before sex is introduced into the conversation?”

Maybe I should make it a drinking game!