Untitled

Michelle Davis
EVWP Summer 2009

Shaking the cardboard box marked with the smiling swoopy arrow told me that I was seconds away from a new book. I joyfully slit the packaging tape with my truck key and read the invoice. Getting Married After 35, by Rachel Greenwald. I didn’t order this. Looking closer at the packing slip, I was able to find the sender. Happy birthday to me from my gay friend, Lou. Okay, Lou doesn’t refer to himself as my “gay friend.” I only mention "gay" here to make it clear that this book was not some charming heterosexual man's cantankerous attempt at a proposal. It was not. It was my 30th birthday and Lou's idea of a joke. Ha Ha.

Rachel Greenwald's "simple 15-step action plan" was hatched after graduating Harvard Business School. This is Marketing 101, she writes, and it takes a commitment of 12-18 months. Since Lou had planned ahead, I did have the time, but found myself lacking the motivation. I admit that I wasn't giving Rachel my full attention as I was preoccupied with a carton of vegetables lo mein and a marathon of Sex & The City re-runs. I thumbed through enough of the book to know that it wasn't for me. Most horrifying was the command that I create flyers announcing my availability and mail them to everyone I know...and ask everyone to spread the word AND the flyers. I'm not kidding.

I never finished the book, but I did take its advice of trying on-line dating...kind of. Why? Because after a certain age, when you are found out to be single, helpful people always ask, "Well, have you tried the internet?" They deliver this line as though they are generously pointing you to the last lifeboat on the Titanic, if the Titanic had been simultaneously sinking from a jagged iceberg, burning to a crisp from an unwieldy bonfire and cowering under an attack by a fleet of dive bombers. If I could say “yes,” would the interrogations stop? It was worth a try.

The eHarmony commercials seemed harmless enough. Answering the questionnaire that would supply me with "compatible matches pre-screened across 29 dimensions" and viewing my matches was free...kind of. Nothing's ever free. I found that out after I spent roughly 30 minutes answering the survey, eHarmony told me that there was no one, no one in the whole universe for me. I immediately imagined the twinkly loveliness of the Milky Way with its 200 billion plus stars dotting the velvety black sky. Really?

eHarmony has boxes to check, depending on just how far and wide you are willing to go for love. A firm believer that one should not expend any more effort than is absolutely necessary whenever possible, I started with 25 miles. Nothing. I moved my check to 50 miles, hoping that Mr. Match was not on the other side of the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel. He wasn’t. I kept recasting a wider net, still nothing. How could that be? I didn’t mind at all that my perfect-across-29-dimensions match, Sergey, was hiding out in Chechnya and unable to answer the phone. I just wanted to know that he was out there.

Curiouser and curiouser, I selected the last box, The Universe. eHarmony swiftly informed me that there was no match to be had. I couldn’t believe it. First, it was statistically unlikely. Second, why would a dating site actually tell a potential customer that? It must have been operator error. I tried again; it wasn’t operator area. Stupefied, I removed my information and user name from the site and decided immediately not to have an existential crisis.

I confided to my friend, Michelle, the truth about the universe and its surprising disdain for me. “You must have answered the questions wrong. You’re so hard on yourself. You need me to help you with it,” she suggested.

“I know I’m hard on myself, but it was a looooong questionnaire. It wasn’t all ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ They even had sliding scales and other boxes to check. I think it’s virtually impossible to sabotage,” I replied.

Michelle wrinkled her nose in my direction and weighed the possibilities. Like any great friend, she took my side in this matter, even if it was the whole universe we were up against. And that’s when I noticed that I had an involuntary response to eHarmony commercials, specifically when Dr. Neil Warren appeared to endorse his brainchild. I still flip that man the bird with the dexterity of a seasoned gunfighter.

I took a five year break before I had the nerve to try Chemistry.com. Remember that repulsive flyer that you send to friends? That’s basically what a profile is for dating sites. Chemistry was more rigorous than I had anticipated. Each 24 hours, I was sent five new matches that I had to rate before the next five would be sent to me. It was like high school. Actually, the second bachelor who was matched to me was an old high school friend. Chemistry provides a series of “safeguards” before you are allowed to e-mail your matches. In order to say hello to my friend, I would have to feign interest by rating him as “sizzling.” I did, feeling confident that he would know that I was just trying to say a friendly hello.

He did not return the sentiment, and I found out that the on-line dating world is its own version of Vegas. Not for me, though. I couldn’t stop talking about it. I had a whole host of friends as a support system this time around just an Alt-Tab away on Facebook. My Pit Crew enjoyed the regular mass discussion threads I sent out detailing my progress. In fact, they were quickly friending each other, making connections, all a direct result of my inability to make any for myself. When a stripper was matched to me on Chemistry, I decided to take my leave before the month’s subscription was up. It wasn’t him; it was me. My pal Lucy offered the consolation of, “You will always have ones.” He had a job. He was smiling and fully dressed in his picture. I just couldn’t figure out what I could bring to that relationship.

A month of Match.com was my next plan of attack. The good news about this site is that you are able to search profiles of all users without having to wait for matches to arrive in your mailbox. The bad news is that you have to choose your best physical feature from a pull down menu. Seriously. Based on the available options, I thought the box marked “feet” was safe. I even posted what I thought was a harmless picture of my feet minding their own business in front of a bookshelf to support my claim. That’s when I found out that I was a couple of photographs away from being a kingpin in the foot fetish community. You see, the profiles are also searchable by feature. “Will you post a photograph of your feet in stockings?” men wondered. “No, I would not,” I replied. “Would you be interested in joining a Yahoo user group that’s for people with foot fetishes?” someone asked. “No ,thank you,” I answered.

At least I was having some fun e-mail exchanges with a member of Red Sox Nation. I eventually gave him my phone number. It was about thirty minutes into the conversation that he was able to work in this little tidbit; he also had a foot fetish. My cordless phone allowed me to get on-line while we finished the conversation and delete the pesky photo from my profile once and for all. Even at home, I began to involuntarily obscure my bare feet under furniture, or quite intentionally wear thick socks. The other 50% of the mail in my inbox was from the male homosexual community.

I was so relieved when the gay men showed up to send me “winks.” Winks are exactly what they sound like, a wordless way to pass on a little, “Hey Cutie!” with a tiny smiley face appearing in your in-box. My friend Kevin tells me, “You are a gay man’s dream.” I assumed that they had dutifully shown up again with their parade float full of support for me. Being a southern girl, I always read their profiles and sent thank-you messages for the winks and a little shout out to the gay crowd. Seems all of these “gay” men had mistakenly marked that they were interested in the same sex on their profiles and bristled a little when I sent them a “woop woop” hello for their solidarity. Apparently, I am the accidental gay man’s nightmare.

The best yield from my two-month marathon in the world of on-line dating is my girlfriend, Lisa. Not that kind of girlfriend...we were lab partners in high school chemistry class. You can click on “Find People Like Me” to scope out the competition and get an idea about what a successful promotional campaign might look like. I took her out for lunch, didn’t even have to kiss her goodbye and we’re still friends. My male match did end up being on the other side of the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel, and all I have to show for it is a Magic 8 Ball and a strong hope that there really is no one in the universe who mirrors my 29 dimensions of compatibility. I’ve spent enough time on dates with myself already.