SIGNING UP FOR A NEW DATING SITE (OH, WHAT FUN!)

For a long, loooong time, I’ve been on two “respectable” dating sites. By respectable, it’s a low bar. I mean they don’t allow you to post selfies that shows dicks and butts. (That’s my assumption. I haven’t tried. I haven’t seen them on anyone’s profile. Maybe I have an uncanny sense of only being curious about “respectable” guys.) I can’t bash these websites. They have features that annoy me, but it’s not their fault that I’m still single. I’m sure I can come up with a list of other things to blame.

 

COVID has made it convenient, even justifiable, for me to say I can’t just go out there and meet guys IRL, aka, in the real world.[1] More than ever, online searching is a reasonable, responsible option. 

 

I gave up on match.com long ago after it seemed there were only five or six gay men from Vancouver on that site…and the one I met in person promptly fled to Edmonton. (I’ll have to make another list of things to blame for that.) Plenty of Fish has been overfished and the stock was never replenished. OkCupid seems to have gone the way of match.com. 

 

Did everyone but me find someone?! 

 

It’s not really a resolution, but I’ve decided to try some other dating sites. Maybe three. I question my motives. Am I really trying or am I just looking for blog fodder? Nonetheless, on Saturday night while taking breaks from having a rowdy time doing laundry—putting shoes in the dryer makes it exciting; I almost wanted my neighbor to call the police for a noise disturbance—I went online to sign up on my first new dating site. I’d heard about the site before, yet I’d resisted recognizing that it might be a suitable site. It’s called Silver Singles. It’s for people over fifty. And, yes, my driver’s license, birth certificate and passport all confirm that I qualify, even if I made a mess trying to white out the incriminating evidence.

 

What follows are my stream of consciousness thoughts while I navigated the website: 

 

Site found: Silver Singles

 

Click to sign up.

 

First screen. Decision time.

I am a Woman / Man

Seeking a Woman / Man

 

Hmm. None of that nonbinary stuff. We’re over fifty. Presumably, we don’t get that.

 

Email and password selection. God, another damn password. I’ve used up the name of every actress who ever played a Desperate Housewife and, no, as easy as it would be to remember, I’m not including 69 as the requisite number. I’m gay. If anyone wants to crack my account, that’s gotta be the first try.

 

I’m welcomed! I think the site is trying to teach me handy social skills because the welcome comes in the form of, “Nice to meet you,” followed by, “We are excited to get to know you and brainwash into buying a Premium membership for twelve months at the REDUCED RATE of only $37.95 per month.” It doesn’t actually say that last part. That’ll come after I spend all that time filling things out. The monthly rate is based on a year’s membership. This is going to cost $455.40! Apparently when your over fifty and single, they take you for desperate. Premium sounds hopeful. Premium will get it done. And Premium will cost you. Natch.

 

But then they’re already having doubts about me:

            Please confirm your gender:

            Female / Male

It’s like a trick. They switched from Woman and Man. 

Still nothing for Nonbinary. Not even a 1 to 5 scale on how manly I am. 

 

            Please confirm the gender of your 

            desired partner:

            Female / Male

I suppose we older folder folks are prone to clicking the wrong item sometimes, especially when we pretend we don’t need our reading glasses, which we damn well know we do. If only we could remember where we put them. I did find my keys in the freezer. At last! I’ve been stuck at home for three days.

 

But I do appreciate that I have to confirm I’m a Man seeking a Man. Maybe this whole confirmation business only comes when a newbie indicates a same-sex interest. 

Are you sure? You grew up knowing how much easier it is to pass for straight.

            This might get mucky.

 

But mucky, my dear Silver Singles administrator, is when I have to look at profiles of eighty-something women seeking a male provider whom they can bake for. Good god, no. If I want a lemon loaf, I’ll buy a nicely wrapped one with pesky, tooth-dwelling poppy seeds at Safeway. 

 

Man.

Seeking Man.

 

Male.

Seeking Male.

 

Yes, I meant to do that.

 

I click on and discover this is a highly reputable dating site as I skim the options for answering, “What is your marital status?” Open relationship is not there. (Are they still trying to weed out the gays?) With a twinge of shame, I select, “I have never been married” but regain a sense of superiority as I notice none of the options, though written as sentences, end in a period. Ha! I take my shame and cast it back upon you. BOOM! (Or, if you will, BOOMERANG.)

 

Next up: level of education. I am shocked that the first option is “No Education”. Um, what? None? I’m suddenly doubting this $37.95 a month investment. There may be some truth to that saying, “All I really needed to know I learned in kindergarten,” but there may be some Silver Singles that never got that far. No finger painting. No dress-up center. No blocks. (Okay, I never got any of my own block experiences because Mrs. Brown couldn’t pull me away from the dress-up center but still…)

 

Fingerpainting. How do you get to plus-fifty without ever using your index finger and thumb to smear a sheet of butcher paper tacked to an miniature plastic easel with swirls of red, blue and yellow which, when you’re done, you tell Mrs. Brown is a picture of a shark eating a princess so the prince can hang with the knight? 

 

My fingerpainting days were short-lived. Mrs. Brown moved me to the macaroni art table. But technically I do have fingerpainting experience, unlike Mr. No Education.

 

The next education option is Middle School. 

 

What the hell I’m I getting myself into?

 

What follows are questions about height and some picture selections about what resonates most with me. Picture of a messy desk, some in-betweens and then a desk with a keyboard but no laptop and not much else. Is this a pretend computer device? I’m so tempted to pick that one since stone tablet is not pictured.

 

Ethnicity. Mine and then:

“Which ethnic groups should your partner 

suggestions belong to?” 

Options: I don’t mind, Caucasian, 

First Nation / Inuit / Métis, 

Asian, Indian, African Descent, 

Latin American, Other. 

I could quibble about the terminology to be all politically correct, but I’m too fascinated about “Other.” Does that include Zombie? Extraterrestrial? Muppet? 

 

Of course, I pick “I don’t mind.” Why limit things? I start to think about how my coffee date will go with zombie Super Grover.

 

Next up is another shame Q: 

“How satisfied 

are you with 

your appearance?” 

Again, I divert my shame, instead fake gagging as I think of the guy who opts for “Very much so.” To be clear, I don’t want to date a social media influencer who posts daily gym selfies. How do I filter him out?

 

I’m being serious.

 

Religion comes next. Good god. I’m the type of person who types the previous sentence and only capitalizes the first letter of the sentence. Figure it out. I feel like I’ve just stepped into an open manhole. (I did that once. Honest. While jogging in the pitch black on a road under construction while in college in Fort Worth, Texas. I didn’t want anyone to see me exercising. There you go. You can guess how I answered the feelings-about-my-appearance question, too.)

 

Moving on…

 

“Which role would you like a partner to fulfill the most?” 

Gasp! “Dreamy lover” is one of the choices. What over-fifty person says that? 

 

Okay, this dating site might work for me.

 

Blah, blah, pick, pick. Another picture question to give me and the “No Education” folks a much-needed reading break. 

 

“If your partner suggests a shared calendar to align both your activities, 

how would you feel?” 

“Ew” is not one of the options. There is no “Other.” There isn’t even, “I don’t believe in calendars. They only underscore the fact I’ve got nothing going on. Ever. That’s why I’m answering these dating site questions at 8:37 on a Saturday night.”

 

More blah. Really, at this point, I just want to click through so I can meet zombie Super Grover.

 

And then, at last: 

“Well done! You finished the personality test.”

 

Is that what that was? Is it shared with the government? Have I been red-flagged? Was a personality even detected?

 

Breathe. The following sentence states, “We will match you with compatible members every day.” Every day? What the hell is their standard for compatibility. How many guys with no education who feel very much satisfied with their appearance are going to pop up? My dreamy lover might not be suggested until November. That’s a lot of $37.95 monthly payments. 

 

Dammit. They’ve got me.

 

 

 

---

[1] IMHO, we may one day have ways of shortening every somewhat commonly used phrase. TBH, I hope to be dead before then. 

HERE I GO AGAIN--Part One (Glass Half Empty)

You don’t procrastinate doing things you really want to do. Two months ago, I blogged that, now fully vaccinated and perhaps staying in Vancouver for the indefinite future, I was teetering toward possibly reactivating my online dating profiles. But I didn’t. It became a “chore,” on my To Do list, a Post-it that no longer registered with my brain even though it was slapped right next to the handle on my fridge. It joined “mop under sofa” and “figure out how to put sliding door back on to cover laundry area.” Important, perhaps, but these are the kinds of things I rely on someone else to nag me about until one or both of us screams, “I’ve had it!” Prepare to die, dust bunnies. 

 

Days passed, then weeks. Did I really want to look at thumbnail pics of men again? Did I want to get rattled by the site’s less than genuine declaration that it sought to bring together people for healthy, happy relationships? Why then, dear Cupid, would the screen page default to “You might also like…” after I send someone a message? Are you telling me I aimed too high in writing a clever little note to VanMuscleMan? Don’t you just want me to click, click, click so you can show advertisers how heavily browsed your site is? (As a writer, specificity adds character to a piece, but I can’t recall a single advertiser and I’m not about to log in to peruse ads. I have better things to do. Like mopping under the sofa.)

 

On Sunday, I took a corner table at a café and finally logged in again, first having to tell OkCupid I’d forgotten my password and then surprising myself that I breezed right into Plenty of Fish. Oh, POF, if only we could break up for good. 

 

When I first joined these sites way back when I could still call myself middle-aged, it was all free. All my clicking presumably brought in enough income. Over time, the sites wanted my credit card deets in exchange for “highlighting my profile” with a gold star or maybe dancing pickles above the header. Very suggestive, right? I passed. I’m desperate enough to still be on your site but, dammit, I’m not $10.95 per month desperate. And the reduced rate if I go for the annual plan only admits the sad reality that, yes, I’m a likely candidate for site surfing into perpetuity. Hope and denial prevent me from making an economically savvy decision.

 

I updated my pics. I tweaked the paragraphs in my bio. I added and deleted interests. Seems I like the idea of kayaking more than actually going for a paddle. (But I’ve added it to my To Do list.)

 

I browsed. POF flashed the message “Someone Likes You” a few times. I would have to pull out my credit card to find out. No thanks. As I clicked on profiles, parts of each were cut off. Again, the site interrupted my search, imploring me to grab my VISA to “read Leif72’s full profile.” I was tempted. Leif is such a great name. So Nordic! I’m partial to all things Scandinavian. Leif and I could fika on the first date. (Don’t be sleazy, Dear Reader. Fika may be a four-letter f-word, but it’s perfectly acceptable to do in public, even with Granny Eriksson watching.) Still, I resisted the expenditure. I also made a note to revisit my profile to make sure my first paragraph, in particular, popped.

 

It turns out there was a legitimate reason for my procrastination. The catalog of men underwhelmed on both sites. OkCupid was especially chintzy in letting me browse for free. They’d made it so I could only see one profile at a time and I would have to do the equivalent to swiping left or right as a rash judgment for someone before I could see the next person at the mercy of my click finger. Four or five no’s and I had to stop. It felt harsh and dismissive, which it literally was, at least as to the latter part. I logged out. I haven’t gone back. It’s time for me to accept, once and for all, that OkCupid and I are not a match. All the best to you in your future pursuit of desperate men’s cash.

 

Plenty of Fish and I have a much longer previous relationship, albeit often acrimonious. Once I’d navigated around all the attempts to rob me of my meager funds, I took a deep breath, entered a search and looked at the results. After five minutes, I knew I needed an attitude adjustment. I was reacting with horror and hostility to many of the profiles. So many guys with the same photos I’d first seen years ago. It seems these guys don’t age and/or they don’t know how to take a quick selfie on their phone. While I think I could connect with another tech-challenged man, I’m turned off by the clear lack of effort here. 

 

Scroll, scroll.

 

More agitation. When you create a profile, you have a chance to show your best self. Unlike all the dreadful annual school photos, YOU get to choose the pics. Snap, delete ad infinitum until--Wow! This one’s not bad. Almost looks like me even after cropping, editing and choosing a “Dramatic Warm” iPhone filter. I’ve been deceived by a profile photo a time or two. But many of these Fishermen didn’t seem to get the art of self-promotion or even the concept of giving a damn. 

 

One guy posted a single photo, blurry, mostly of an indistinct background wall. (Sir, please go to YouTube and type “how to crop a photo” in the search window. Even easier, use the crop feature that POF provides before you post your pic.) 

 

Scroll.

 

Another guy who ascribes to the One Photo Is Enough school of thought posted a shot so dark that I wasn’t sure if I was looking at his face or a fire hydrant. Another man included several pictures, but I’m not sure what he was going for. One consisted of his feet and a shadow on the ground. Another had him holding up a barbecued rat (squirrel?) on a skewer. I don’t know about the others. The rat was enough of an unwelcome surprise. 

 

SCROLL!

 

Another guy demonstrated a knowledge of cropping skills, showing one shot of his abs--um, no complaints--and a second of him standing in gym attire in a locker room, his baseball cap and its shadow covering his face. What’s there to intuit? See me for my body, not my face.

 

The next profile featured a stunning photo of a camel. The guy was there too, kneeling behind, most of him obscured by said camel. So, he’s portraying himself as an adventurer. He went to Egypt, I presume, but why is my eye drawn to the camel? To be perfectly clear--and this is essential--I’m not into camels, but there’s a rule in acting that kids and animals will upstage you every time. Same for dating profile photos.

 

Scroll, scroll.

 

One guy added a caption under his photo: “danceing Through the Tulips”. 

 

You have no idea what kind of a battle Autocorrect and I had over that one. It got quite heated and the barista told me to quiet down or I’d have to leave. Here’s a partial transcript immediately after I first typed the tulip dancer’s photo caption:

 

                        Autocorrect:   Whoa! You’ve been drinking ciders 

                                                again, haven’t you?

                                      Me:    Have not.

                        Autocorrect:   Whatever. There. Fixed.

                                      Me:    No! It’s supposed to be that way.

                        Autocorrect:   Hell, no! Allow me to show you how 

                                                it’s supposed to be.

                                      Me:    I know that! I know how it’s supposed 

                                                to be. But I want it to look wrong.

                        Autocorrect:   Good god, don’t be daft. There. 

                                                Fixed again.

                                      Me:    Stop that. I need it to look exactly 

                                                how someone else wrote it.

                        Autocorrect:   That’s just mean. Surely, he’d want 

                                                things to look proper.

                                                That’s my raison d’être.

                                      Me:    Apparently not. I’m thinking he 

                                                turned you off.

                        Autocorrect:   The fool! Who would do such a thing?

                                      Me:    Exactly. So, it’s staying as is.

                        Autocorrect:   This is painful.

                                      Me:    Agreed. Let’s move on.

                        Autocorrect:   Yes. Let’s.

 

You’ll be happy to know the barista didn’t kick us out, but he looked at me oddly when I said my friend and I wanted to apologize.

 

Another gentleman claimed to be sixty-one. I double-checked that. Huh. This is one of those guys who thinks, I’ll just subtract ten, maybe fifteen. My friend Norma says I look young for my age. Dude, Norma was being nice. Be you. Be your age! I’ve heard men lament that no one will look at them if they give their real age. Hell, that’s MY lament. But it’s the reality. What are you going to do when you meet for coffee? Borrow that baseball cap from Mr. Abs?

 

AAAAAAAAH!

 

There is only one possible explanation for all these ill-advised, low-effort presentations: My mom made me create a profile. Well, Mom should have had a peek before you pressed the save button.

 

Plenty of Fish and I are all caught up. I can’t say it’s good to be back.

 

         UP NEXT: After regrouping, it seems I’ve got a date lined up.  

YOU'VE GOT MAIL...SORT OF

Sometimes it’s worse to get mail than to not get mail. Take my VISA statement which arrived in my mailbox last week. (Seriously,...take it. Please.) The thing felt more like a brick wrapped in paper than a credit card bill. But this blog is not supposed to be about my irresponsible spending binges. Let me redirect things to my inbox on the dating sites OkCupid and Plenty of Fish. The Cupid one is easy to address. It’s clearly out of order. Nothing for weeks on end. I log in, I hear nothing but crickets chirping—it’s gotta be the critters’ version of mock laughter—and I sheepishly log out.

Mail. What was I thinking?

Plenty of Fish isn’t much better. To extend the website’s fishing analogy, I get a nibble, I reel it in, I throw it back. It’s the kind of catch-and-release that comes with hooking a paltry minnow or, worse, one of those creepy, prehistoric looking, slimy bottom feeders.

I got a bite today. Mail, for those of you not following the fish talk. I suppose the bright side is that it wasn’t from a ghastly creature with an overbite, beady eyes protruding from the sides of its face and spiny growths springing up seemingly everywhere. (I can’t gaze long enough to be precise. And, as you might guess, I get a little freaked out swimming in lakes and rivers.)

No, I pulled in a minnow.

The tiniest of nibbles.

hi man

No capital letter, no punctuation, no name.

It’s not a record for fewest characters in a message. No, I’ve blogged that before. Winner “communicated”—I have to put that word in quotes—in a remarkably concise three characters:

h r u

I went ahead and read hi-man-guy’s profile. (I’ve already established that messages are a rarity.) Nothing glaringly offensive, but then nothing to latch onto either. Yeah, if I’d messaged him, the best I might have been able to come up with would have been, “Hi man.” But, yes, a capital and a period. For self-respect.

Alas, why bother?

Delete.

Enough said.

OFFLINE

Seems I’m constantly asking, Does this site work? Not with regards to its effectiveness in finding the man of my dreams and eventually posting a wedding announcement in The New York Times. (Yes, I see that another happy couple met on Ok Cupid.) That kind of success is all too far-reaching. I’m questioning the actual functionality of these dating sites. As in, How come every single time I log in there are no new messages? None. Zero. Must be a virus. My passwords are infested with online crickets.

There’s always that tried and true test: power off, power on, log out, log in. No difference. I even tried an electrical outlet in another room. No messages.

And so I’m rueing the good ol’ days of online dating which, to be clear, weren’t so good at all. But there were messages. Guys that struggled to type an entire line or even real words.

Sup?

U R kwute.

Instantly deletable but, in that nanosecond between realizing I had a message and actually seeing the message, there was hope. Sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G, love, marriage and all that. It’s been ingrained in me since grade one.

This time around, I don’t even get those presumably dubious messages from boys in Brazil or the Philippines. Scams of some sort. I never repled but technically they counted as messages in my inbox.

It’s nada now. No deliveries. I may have to take up knitting. Please don’t let it come to that. I’m afraid of needles, even the knitting kind. God knows what kind of injuries I’d incur. Solitaire is safer but I tired of that during my recent hospital stay. When I buy a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle that’s a red-hued Rothko or one big gray-blue swath of the Pacific Ocean, things will officially be bleak.

I’ve messaged a couple of guys on each dating site. OkCupid tries to temper my expectations immediately after I press the send button. “If it’s meant to be, you’ll hear from him.” No response. It’s not even meant to be a rejection after coffee. (Egad. Do I actually miss that?!)

Perhaps I should click on the FAQs page or contact a site administrator.

Dear Sir,

I wanted to alert you to a glitch with your dating site. I am not getting any messages. Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

I heard laughter even as I typed that. (You’re welcome, Site Manager. I’m guessing most days are rather boring. Forgotten passwords, complaints about pop-up ads and all that.)

Guess I’ll have to keep powering on and off, logging in and out. I’ll try to catch myself when I hum “Someday My Prince Will Come” and make it stop. And this Sunday I may give the Vows section of The New York Times a pass. Happy for you, all the same, Blake and Stanley with your degrees from Harvard and your lovely wedding on Martha’s Vineyard. I just have to focus on my computer conundrum.

It’s not me. It’s my computer.

THEY DO, THEY DO, THEY DO, THEY DO, THEY DO

I know I’m supposed to look away. It does no good to gawk. Certainly doesn’t help the situation. May even make me cringe. But I get sucked in every Sunday. I take a glance. I tell myself it breeds hope, but what I immediately feel is a wee sting and a pang of jealousy.

Another couple getting married and posting the announcement in the New York Times. Two men. A few years ago, when I first spotted one, I felt pride. Sound the wedding bells and a certain ABBA song! Another step forward for the LGBT movement. Affirmation in my favorite newspaper. I was truly happy for the (presumably) happy couple.

But somewhere over time, resentment nudged its way in. These smiling men with Harvard law degrees and PhDs from Berkeley were marrying other guys. Not only were they smartypants, they looked decent and served on boards of noble-sounding charities. Their smiling faces served as a slap across my own, refuting all my whining that there aren’t any good guys out there. (Maybe I just have to move to The Big Apple.)

I always compose myself enough to wish them well. Surely they’re not trying to rub it in that they are Haves and I’m a Have Not. Surely weddings have nothing to do with flaunting. (It’s about new dishes, isn’t it?) How could the rest of us feel anything other than pure joy? Congrats, guys!

And then a few months ago I felt more of a comeuppance when I read the final sentence of Stewart and Paul’s wedding announcement: “The couple met on OkCupid in 2015.” Two weeks later, the last sentence regarding Gregg and Jonathan stated, “The couple met through OkCupid in 2011, and learned that they lived around the corner from each other in Brooklyn.” And just yesterday, regarding Johathan and Matthew (who happen to look an awful lot like Gregg and Jonathan): “The couple met through OkCupid in 2015.”

Hmm. I could draw one of several conclusions. Perhaps OkCupid has found an inventive way to advertise in the oh-so-reputable New York Times. Could Gregg have changed his name to Jonathan and is Jonathan going by Matthew now that he’s shaved his beard? After all, Americans love their conspiracy theories. (Even the backgrounds in the pictures look similar. Same photographer? …Or…same poseurs?!) Perhaps I could be the one to uncover the scam. Maybe it’s incumbent upon me to do so. No other reader would have saved these clippings, ostensibly for some future blog post.

Egad. Is this what happens after a dozen years of being steadfastly single? How jaded and cynical can I be? Will it get worse?!

Even if I were to dismiss these “Ok” success stories, I came across another stop-yer-whining notation in a September blurb regarding Daniel and David: “The couple met in 2012 as members of Front Runners New York, a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender running club, and started dating in 2013.”

Perhaps there is an undercurrent of hope in all of this. Finding love may still be possible. Dating sites just might work. By golly, I’m still on OkCupid and, as of today, 210 men apparently “Like” me…though not enough to send a message. (Weirdly, it only takes sixty seconds to scroll through the thumbnail photos before the site tells me, “That’s everyone we could find.”

This morning I messaged the guy with the second highest percentage match—a 92%er! A glance at his profile reveals he’s a bisexual who “might” have sex with his best friend’s partner if he knew the tryst would never be discovered and who would consider cutting a partner if requested during sex. Yes, folks, this is 92%. And suddenly hope feels like false hope…

But there’s Front Runners, too. I officially joined in August. I rarely make Wednesday night runs because I can’t get out of work on time for the 6:30 run, but it’s a new week and I’ll try again. If my future husband isn’t there, at least my belly can get some toning. That’s something. Or maybe that’s false hope, too!

SAME OL' FISHING HOLE

Go ahead, my inner voice says. Try again.

Hard to know if that's an entreaty or a taunt. But it's been a full week since the last dud of a date. Time to make the rounds.

I log in on Plenty of Fish first. No messages. Two views. No. And no. So I'll have to dig up something myself. I could try my saved search criteria: between 41 and 55, within 50 miles of Vancouver. I know what that will turn up. Same thumbnails, some of whom I messaged in yesteryear, some I even gambled on and met for coffee with typical slot machine results: cherry, cherry, lemon. Makes a tasty summer beverage but lousy date. Most of the profiles I've passed over countless times. There's a point when you know it's pointless.

I dare to glance at the New Users link. Has it always been there? I suppose I've unconsciously trained myself to look past it, like the pop-up ads. I learned years ago to avoid the newbies. These guys are testing the waters. Just looking. Maybe still bruised from a fresh breakup, maybe not even officially broken up. Even the new guys who are fully ready to dive into the Fish pool are off-limits. They have too many options. They are fresh bait. All of the seasoned Fish want a taste. The newbies are primed to get the most messages they'll ever get. They are inclined to keep looking ahead at the next message and the next. No chance of getting reeled in. Maybe it doesn't reflect a high opinion of myself, but I need a guy who is starting to smell fishy in that rotting sort of way. Dejected. Disillusioned. Expectations drastically lowered. My kind of guy.

Go ahead, my inner voice goads. And so I click New Users. Show me some fresh Fish.
Halfway through the second page, I am staring at overly familiar faces. “New” is such a relative term. The gay Vancouver dating pool is stagnant, a thick layer of scum at the surface.

I scroll up again. One new face warrants a second look, even a click to read the full profile. He’s 43. Photos look good—none of those distant shots where you can barely see the face. He’s got a long list of the kinds of things he’s looking for in a guy.

√

√

√

Okay, I’m not a golfer, unless there are tiny windmills on the course. But a score of 14 out of 15 ain’t bad. Above par. Or is it below par? Again, not a golfer. I type a message—carefree, with a bit of wit. And right after pressing Send, Plenty of Fish flashes what feels like a No Confidence vote: “Message Sent! We strongly recommend that you look at the following users as well.” These sites aren’t interested in matching people up successfully. It’s all about clicking and maximizing page views. A business, not a service. I shall not be lured. I log off.

I log in at OkCupid next. I’ve committed to doing the rounds so I need to at least check in. Four visitors since yesterday. New York City, Oslo, Memphis…apparently a layer of scum forming on gay pools is an international phenomenon. There is one visitor from Vancouver. I recognize the user name if not the photo. The thumbnail photo depicts his face sticking out from the center of what looks like a giant rhubarb leaf. Maybe a great pic for a Facebook post but the most flattering shot on a dating site. (Or what if it is?!) This guy has messaged me before on Plenty of Fish and on OkCupid. I’m still not interested, but I make a mental note to pick up some rhubarb at Whole Foods. It’s in season and tasty when cooked with a generous amount of sugar.

I’m not up for another search. One message sent and now I’m spent. (Besides, I’ve got that rhubarb craving.) Let a few days pass. Give it another go on the weekend if The Golfer isn’t looking for a caddy. No “A for effort” today. C- maybe. It’s a bump above failing. Maybe next week I’ll think about moving to Memphis. Or Norway.

RIGHT NOW

Okay, so I hooked up. It was easy. Why did I wait so long?

But, of course, I know why. I’m not that kind of guy. All I’ve ever wanted is a solid, loving relationship. Get out of The Dating Game. Re-establish Starbucks et al. as my writing hangouts instead of convenient hubs for dating interviews. Let weekends pass debating what color to paint My Guy’s hall closet. Enjoy evenings with the two of us sitting on the sofa, channel surfing. (I’ll let him have the remote. It’s not at all about the TV for me.)

Then there is reality. My Guy has been missing in (in)action.

Perhaps someone else scooped him up.

What if he’s not a coffee man? Why, oh why, doesn’t tea do anything for me?

Maybe he suffered a miserable bacon-related death. (Try Meatless Mondays, folks. It’s a start.)

The wonderings are infinite. The fact is, My Guy is a no-show. I searched and searched. I waited and waited. And in the back of my mind, there is an unwelcome voice. It’s from a talk show psychologist whom I can’t stand: Dr. Phil. I see him prying a bit of steak from his front teeth with a toothpick, totally bored with my relationship whining, completely unimpressed with my efforts. When I stop to take a breath, he says what he always says, “So how’s that working for you?”

The answer is obvious. It’s not. There are no signs of life in terms of relationship opportunities.

And so I’ve decided to be the Not that Kind of Guy. I’ve decided to live in the moment. Step out of my comfort zone. Hello, hookup. Allow myself some superficial satisfaction. I am single, after all, as I am acutely aware and, frankly, I’m neither a cat guy nor a knitter. I need other ways to keep busy.

It’s not an either-or scenario. I can continue to check more reputable dating sites and I can go back to trying to rebuild a social network, dropping in on the gay volleyball league (when my dang pinky heals!) and the gay running group. I don’t need to completely turn my back on One Day.

This is not ever what I thought I would do. This is not who I imagined becoming. Far from it. Eighteen years ago, not long after I moved to Vancouver, naïve and hopeful, with the lyric “You’re gonna make it, after all” from The Mary Tyler Moore Show dancing about in my head, I rented a room in an older gay man’s townhouse. Older. Ha. He was fifty-two, a mere year older than I am now. Alvin had most everything going for him. He was an intelligent professional, an avid art collector, a master gardener, a keen conversationalist, fit and active. More than anything, he was a kind, loving soul. But he had two strikes against him as a single, gay man: he was old and his face bore the scars from what must have been one helluva battle with adolescent acne.

I’m not sure that an online version of Manhunt existed then. I do recall chat lines by telephone, with billboards at Davie and Burrard showing men in well-packaged Speedos inviting the needy to give them a call. Maybe Alvin tried that, I don’t know. What I do know is he frequented the bathhouses. No shame about it. On occasion he’d continue the connections in his bedroom. Married men whose wives couldn’t give them all they needed.

Alvin and I only talked about it once after a guy named Scott rushed out one Sunday morning, an awkward “Oh, hello” to me as he frantically put on his shoes and scrambled to get back to his wife after having fallen asleep after a particularly noisy romp that disturbed my efforts to sleep at two in the morning and again at four. I asked Alvin a simple question. Why? I was curious, but I’m sure there was extreme judgment in my voice. And Alvin said, “I’m done. I’m not going to find a partner, but I like a good fuck.” I wanted to offer Alvin a dose of naïve positivity. You’re such a great guy. Don’t give up. I know you’ll find love. But I kept my mouth shut. The way he said “I’m not going to find a partner” was definitive.  And negative. Door closed. Game over. I wanted to cry for him. I felt such sadness. But I knew he didn’t want my pity. I have no poker face so I fled the living room almost as swiftly as Scott and went for a walk, leaving Alvin to enjoy his morning coffee alone.

I don’t know what’s become of Alvin. I hope he was wrong. I’d like to think he found love. But my gut tells me he didn’t. You’ll find it when you’re not looking is an empty phrase. I suppose the speaker says it to offer hope, but there seems to be a subtext: Stop obsessing and stop rambling on about it to me. Yes, Alvin is still single. I’m sure of it. And a part of me hopes he’s still hooking up if it fills a temporary need. Alvin deserves to be connected at whatever level it may be.   

And, yes, so do I. I’m not sure how long I’ll want to be Manhunting. What’s interesting is that I don’t feel as much of the dating pull now. I don’t hold my breath when I log in on Plenty of Fish or OkCupid anymore. It’s more of a going-through-the-motions thing. Part of the routine but thankfully no longer a twice or thrice daily habit. Manhunt serves as a distraction—a pleasant one, at that.

I’d like to think that I’d still be up for The Dating Game should the right opportunity arise. In the meantime, I’m living in the right now. It is what it is.

ONLINE DATING TIPS--Part 2: SAY SOMETHING

So you’ve decided on a particular online dating site and you’ve started your profile. You’ve taken my advice on photos. (Quick recap: more than one, background scrutinized, head uncovered, smiley face.) Now you’ve got to say something. And say it now. Don’t type something lame like, “I’ll fill this in later.” Get over your commitment issues. Candy Crush and the Kardashians can wait.

Put in the time. If you list three interests, say you hate writing about yourself and stop after a sentence or two, you don’t give a browser much to go on. You must be relying on a dazzling set of photos. Blindingly so. It still speaks to a clear lack of effort. If you can’t be bothered, why should he? And if you’re too brief, you provide nothing for someone to connect with should he decide to send you a message. “Hey, I’m guessing you like breathing. And eating. Me too!” Lame message but what were you expecting? You gave the guy NOTHING.

I have never responded to a guy with a too-brief profile. It looks incomplete. Maybe I’ll click on it at some later point in time. Maybe you’ll go back and write more. But we all know those maybes are highly unlikely. You failed to register and it was your own doing,…or lack thereof.

The easier writing assignment is listing your interests. But still put some thought into it. Is your list a set of clichés? Are two-thirds of the items mentioned in that Pina Colada song (getting caught in the rain, sunsets, the feel of the ocean, the taste of champagne martinis)? Try to show some range in your interests. If you’re an active dude, awesome. But you can’t be at the gym, biking, jogging, swimming, bungee jumping, snowboarding and log rolling all the time. Be mindful as well about putting yourself into too much of a niche. For a moment, I was amused by the guy who listed napping as an interest. But only a moment. I don’t want to feel like I’m putting a guy to sleep during our first coffee conversation. And I could not click away fast enough from the profile in which the guy listed Pokémon as a favorite thing.

When you write a few sentences—hopefully even a paragraph—about what you’re looking for in a guy, go beyond saying you want someone who is honest and has a sense of humor. Does anyone want an unfunny liar? And whatever you write, spellcheck it. Paste your five lines into a Word document and deal with all the red squiggly lines. And maybe sticklers are a teensy minority but please PLEASE give some thought to whether you’ve got the right homonym among your/you’re, to/two/too and there/their/they’re. Capitals and punctuation are also much appreciated. This is not a text message.

Whew. I said it. I haven’t changed the online dating world, but I feel better. It will last until I read the next dissertation in which the guy thinks “LOL” is a punctuation mark. (Just no.)

Be careful on sites like OkCupid that have endless questions that you can easily respond to so that an alleged calculation formula will produce a match. Some of those point-and-click responses are landmines. Take the question, “In a certain light, wouldn’t nuclear war be sexy?” I’ve come across several guys who intrigued me but answered “Yes”. Uh, what? Too much time reading apocalypse novels and playing video games. Sorry, dude. I immediately moved on.

Then there was a guy who responded affirmatively to “Do you have an ex that you’d really like to date again?” Really?! Who the hell wants to wade into that dynamic? Get your closure or see a therapist before you put out feelers for someone new.

The one that makes me flee the fastest is “Do you have a gun in your home?” Maybe that’s a helpful sorter. Look elsewhere. I’m sure the NRA has enough in its coffers to launch a Gays for Guns mixer at its annual convention. How convenient. And, yes, that really is a gun in his pocket. Chat him up. Fire away.

So go on. Review what you’ve written. Does it say enough? Or, perhaps as in my case, does it say too much? Anything one writes could stand a proofread and a revision or two. The written word still matters.