Hook, online and sinker

12 p.m., January 12th

When Ginny Movat first asked me to join her on her quest for online love, I will admit that I thought that I was better than that.
It’s not that hard, I thought, to find a decent person to hang out with, especially as Ginny mused and moaned about close-up photos that ended up being ugly, or about the dealbreaker of being Chinese.
Imagine my surprise then, upon further review, that I’m not.
Now, the fact that I’m participating in this blog experiment isn’t to say that I’m lonely—though the body pillow I’ve been snuggling with for the past few weeks hasn’t really replaced affection in any meaningful way—but I’ve been contentedly single for the past four months.
And online dating certainly has its stigma. My participating in it isn’t an effort to surprise you, because the market’s mostly moldy. For every person who is honest and vaguely interesting, there’s 25 users who list the six things that they could never live without as “AIR AND WATER LOL”. For every person whose photo piques my interest, “MollyFudge”, for example, who in her self-summary portion describes herself as “like a little talkative calculator, subconsciously driven by fear and sexuality.” Couldn’t have written better if I tried.
But I thought it might be fun. I’m not so awkward that I’m afraid of a bad first date, which is the worst that could happen (although, on the very day we started this, the Halifax news reported robberies after online dates). And surely, I couldn’t be as judgmental as Ginny! I’d let all the girls come to me, as I, ties and all, will obviously attract some interest!
But then I found myself declining girls who listed Michael Buble as their favourite artist, people who came across as hippies, people who I work with at Banana Republic.
All this is getting ahead of myself anyway though, because I hadn’t even made a profile yet.
This was going to be harder than I thought it was going to be.

2 p.m., January 12th

Ends up this is going to take a lot longer than I thought it was going to, as well.
The process of filling in descriptions about myself ended up being harrowing. How do I show myself as a somewhat attractive person without making it seem so forced? How do I present my nerdy tendencies without making it seem like I live in my mother’s basement? How do I respond to people who are as judgmental as I am?
That alone took an hour.
Then came the personal questions, a profoundly prying and surprisingly difficult process with questions that ranged from the controversial (creationism debate, flagburning) to the inane (“Do you think that people with low IQs should not be allowed to reproduce?” or “What is bigger, the earth or the sun?”). One question asked whether or not I generally smile at children that cross my path. One of the multiple-choice answers was “only if no one was looking”.
But two hours later, we’re all set up. Time to find out some essential truths about myself!