Dating and meeting people online with Valentine's Day quickly approaching.
With Valentine's Day fast approaching, the air is full of reminders that my life is devoid of anything that even remotely resembles a social life. I like to console myself by insisting that Valentine's Day isn't so much a celebration of coupledom, but rather a day invented for those of us who are dreamers. That, of course, lasts about two seconds - then I remember that being single sucks a good majority of the time, and spending weeks surrounded by cheap paper hearts and boxes of candy I can't eat won't change that.
Cupid should have his arrows shoved unceremoniously up his cherubic ass.
It's not that I'm down on love, I'm merely in love with the idea of being in love. I have dreams of dancing in the kitchen with a nameless, faceless man, while Frank Sinatra croons in the background; never mind the fact that I'd probably dissolve into giggles the minute it actually happened. The thought of lying in a shadow-filled room while being read the words of great authors sends chills up my spine. I've gone to clubs with the possibility of meeting someone completely by chance in the back of my mind. I even read personal ads - not as a specific tool for meeting people, but because they make me laugh, and serve as a reminder that I'm not the only person flailing around in this knee-high wading pool. Once I stop laughing at all the “Easy money!! Watch me jack off for $100!!” posts, some of them are quite intriguing.
But it's hard to tell who's being even remotely truthful, and who's simply scamming. While I do not have the genetic makeup to be deceptive, I don't trust other people not to be. Pessimistic, I suppose, but history has taught me to be wary. Taking what people say at face value has gotten me in more trouble than my own bluntness ever could. On the other hand, so has reading between the lines; a veritable catch-22. I constantly ask myself when dating became so complicated. The best I can surmise is that the degree of complication is in direct correlation to the ever popular self-defense mechanisms that creep up more often than not after dealing with and moving on from the inevitable hurts of life. No one likes to feel vulnerable, but we all are. Instead of owning up to how we feel we begin to shut down. I call it the curse of being an adult. Personally, I'd like to know who set down the rule that adulthood had to equal letting go of the childlike wonder of exploring. Another. Person. The teenage years were best, by far. The expectations were not only simple and awe-inspiring, but utterly lacking in cynicism.
Dating has, much to my chagrin, reached the point of complete impersonality. It's no wonder the divorce rate is sky-high, and the dating scene has become watered down to such sterility it's a miracle that children are still being born the old-fashioned way. Why not scrap it all, and make cloning the procreative way of the future? We move ever closer with each suggestive email, the protective walls climbing byte by byte. Somewhere along the way, meeting face-to-face became passé. Hiding behind the safety of the computer screen has become the norm, not to mention ridiculously deceptive. It now seemingly takes weeks to accomplish what used to take months, or even years. But therein lies the ruse. Regardless of how much time is spent exchanging email or IMs, the most important parts of who and what a person is cannot be extracted from letters, words, sentences, and paragraphs. I spent nearly six years trying. It's not that I didn't meet and date the old-fashioned way, but absolutely nothing could compete with the intrigue that gripped me. I was fascinated at how easy it was to get wrapped up in the world of words and instant gratification.
Unfortunately, it was that damn fascination that led me merrily skipping down the primrose path only to run headfirst into the proverbial brick wall. Not once. Not twice. Try at least a half a dozen times, and you might be coming close. (I emphasize might.) I would breathlessly await the next email - the next flirtatious volley. I was addicted; so much so that not even the intense frustration of constantly finding myself back at square one could tear me away. Even when I knew it was time to walk away, or risk losing my self-respect completely, I refused to take my leave.
So, when I recently found myself in a similar situation, I made it perfectly clear that I was interested in more than online flirting. I wanted something real; something tangible. And we were on our way.
Or so I thought.
Perhaps the expectations were too high. Perhaps the reality just couldn't compare to the safety and picture-perfect idealism that cyberspace can provide. Hell, perhaps all we both really wanted was an ego-boost - a validation of sorts.
It's hard to say, because we never got beyond briefly meeting twice. I was under the impression that everything was going well. We'd made plans to spend some time together, get to know each other a bit.
Then nothing.
At first I was angry. I had already been through the minefield of email flirting and gotten blown to bits. I wasn't ready for it to happen again quite so soon. I went through the inevitable questions of what exactly it was that I had done, only to realize that it had nothing to do with me. Not really. He had instigated it, and he had ended it. Whatever his reasons, I don't truly have so big of an ego to honestly believe his decision had anything to do with me. We all come with our own unique issues; sometimes they mesh, sometimes they don't. In the end, though, all I'm left with is speculation, a bitter taste in my mouth, and more than a little disappointment.
All things told it wasn't a complete waste: I still have the visual of abusing Cupid to amuse me, and while discovering what it is that I truly want escapes me yet again, I have become more aware of what it is that I don't. Regardless of what I've learned or not, I still find myself captured by the intrigue; by the thought of finding my equal who will work to discover the wealth that lies within me as much as I will for his.
