Around Valentine’s Day, as the Haves were posting pics of
their chocolate and flower haul on Facebook and Instagram, articles popped up
on the internet for the Have Nots. The basic message: doom. Dating connections
that arise from online dating sites are less likely to endure than
relationships that form from introductions orchestrated by friends and family
or that develop simply from knowing one another in a common setting. I don’t
know if any research was necessary. It makes common sense. And yet more and
more people are putting their hopes on websites with a catalog of thumbnail
photos of hypothetically single people who are hypothetically seeking a
relationship. (You might hypothesize that this writer is a tad jaded.)
I am one of the site seekers. There is no alternative. I
cannot recall the last time I had a date that did not arise from a dating
website. I’m thinking it was Arnie Jones, a guy from the gym eighteen years
ago. We spent six months smiling at each other across the gym floor before my
friend John had had enough and made us have an awkward conversation on crowded
Denman Street in July. He served as negotiator. Would you two like to go out? Yes! About time. Unfortunately, I was
heading to Ontario the next day for an extended summer holiday. Arnie and I got
our date at last at the end of August. A lovely dinner and conversation and a
commitment to play tennis together next. Unfortunately, there was a circuit
party in Vancouver over the Labor Day weekend and Arnie became smitten by a
party boy from Chicago. And that was that. My difficulty in landing a second
date goes way, way back.
I would love a date that arises from a chance encounter while
sizing up bananas at the grocer or that results from being squeezed together
during rush hour on Skytrain. It could potentially come from a ride up the
elevator in my condominium. There are twenty-eight floors. You’d think there’d
be an available guy or two, but no one talks in the elevator. Everyone stares
at their phones, the equivalent to invisible electrical fences to keep
person-to-person contact at bay. What amuses me is that we don’t get reception
in our elevator. It seems there are more socially insecure people than me.
A work colleague could set me up, but my sexuality is never
discussed. Everyone knows but I’m the boss in a unionized environment. People
only get so close. Perhaps I could be set up with a friend of a friend.
Unfortunately, my list of friends has shrunk dramatically and they’ve heard
plenty of my dud and thud first dates. It is reasonable to think I am the
problem. Why would they wish that on their other friends?
So, as much as I bemoan my online experiences, they are the only
realistic option. Chances of success are slim. An internet article even says
so! Still, I go through the motions. (Drat. The humorous kale lover on OkCupid
has not responded to my message. Apparently bonding over kale quips is a
longshot. Now I know.)
Sometimes, I still get hopeful. I haven’t allowed the odds
against being published again to deter me from writing and dreaming. I shan’t
let the odds push me out of the online dating market either. Sometimes I even
buy a lottery ticket. I’m just an against all odds kind of guy.
Or maybe it’s just that I don’t know what else I’d do. That
Candy Crush game thingy is out. I don’t even know how to download an app. And,
truth be told, I’ve always been a bit afraid of cats. I’d suck at taking up
knitting as a hobby.
Sigh.
I log in and slog on.
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