Why I Can't Online Date

Let me first preface this post by saying that this isn't my chance to rail on the online dating community.

It's just me blathering on about why it doesn't work for me.

It works for a shit-ton of people, but just because I don't like to do origami, it doesn't mean I want it banished from existence.

This is just my honest experience with my attempt at dating the Internet.

It started relatively early in my singledom, and I guess these days it's an honest evolution in the world of being single. You're depressed, you go out too much, get more depressed, experiment in various levels of promiscuity searching for the filling in the void you've made for yourself and it eventually ends in moments where you're searching for an answer/solution.

I've had friends and family that have been very successful finding themselves somebody online, and after a bit of prodding and encouragement I decided to take a stab at it. I lasted 10 minutes.

I guess it started as any online experience does; Name, username, age, blah, blah, profile...STOP! That was it. Profile.

I wrote the first few paragraphs, then re-read it, deleted most of it, then wrote it again. Got through what I thought was a decent synopsis of who I might be, then went back for a few minor edits...and that was the point I stopped in my tracks and deleted the whole account.

See, what occurred to me is that when you meet somebody, you can't edit yourself. You can't start off with a few lines and then stop, un-do what you just said/did and try again to make it sound like you really wanted it to sound like.

And I don't want you to either. That's what makes me like people. Its not that we both like tennis or the same music or eggplants or whatever. It's the other stuff. See, thats what separates friends from all the other people out there. You put up with the un-edited version of them.

The reality is we're all just a mish-mash of false starts and bad takes. That's what makes us not robots. That's what I love about people and what I love about myself. And thats what I want to see and hear.

You want to know the life that I want everybody to think I lead is? Go to facebook, cuz that's what its for.

But real connections for me start with the real you. And the real me. Maybe people prefer to ease into the weirdness that we all possess. I disagree. Gimme the you. Gimme the awkward first date you, because that's you. Give me the shy doesn't-want-to-ask-for-my number you. Because that's you.

I guess I am inherently a people person. Through to my core. If you want to know me, you gotta meet me.

That's the only accurate way I can express to you who I am. And it unfortunately doesn't translate into text the way I would like it to. Maybe if they started making computers in 3D that shot fireworks and beer out of them.

Too bad tho, because my current strategy kind of blows.