Guest Post: Rob with Adventures in Awkwardness and E Harmony

I thought it'd be interesting to have a guy's opinion on internet dating.  Remember here when I gave up online dating? And here when I went back to it? While Rob is not a member of Couch, he is very Couch friendly. Welcome!

So today I took the plunge, I signed up for an Eharmony account.

Background, after living the single life long enough and realizing I have no single, attractive, sane female friends, I decided this might be a good life choice. At least after haggling down to a manageable cost I figured it couldn’t be too bad. I even had two female friends suggest I do this. I tried it once before, went on two dates, and dated the second girl for 5 months. Not bad. I thought she was neat so I quit paying for it and now I have to sign up again. So it goes.

Anyway, yes. I suppose I will be documenting my foray into internet dating part deux. I think I should address a few possible concerns here before we get started.

1.       Am I qualified for this?

I have a degree in Sociology from Emory University. This means I can string a sentence together and I have a cursory knowledge of how to write about people doing wacky shit in a systematic, analytical, observational fashion. In addition, I am 25 years old with a promising career path, am physically fit, and have no STDs or significant personality disorders. Let’s do this.

2.       Who cares?

Beats the fuck out of me, you’re the one reading this.

3.       Isn’t internet dating sketchy?

Statistics I looked up on Google in 5 minutes indicate that 31% Americans either have used online dating or know someone who has. That seems fishy, but who cares. I’m a big strong American He-man and I can take care of myself.

4.       What if you don’t get any dates?

Then this will brief.

5.       What if you get loads of dates?!

I’ll be poor, but confident.

6.       What is your goal in all this?

I’d like to find a nice lady who is athletic, intelligent, sane, and I get along super well with. I know, right?

So anyway, that’s what I’ve got so far. I’m filling out my profile and all that, and putting up photos of myself that make me look like a well-adjusted human being.  This will be a process, and I will write more later.

So it begins.

Online Dating 2: Electric Bugaloo

Alright. Even after I made my dramatic statement about giving up on online dating, my friend convinced me to join again by reminding me I could block people very easily.  So I'm officially going on record to say that I'm back on just one dating site.  But let me restate...as I haven't dated since 2007, I am now beyond neurotic and feel the need to consult friends frequently.  Who else feels neurotic about dating?

Wait, I may need to be on this show

Well, I'm pretty hopeless at dating, and since I started getting my masters in Medieval and Renaissance history my nerdiness has been increasing exponentially. I have a Doctor Who poster in my room, and I make far too many Firefly references. I even said "Peace and long life" to a professor, but in all fairness he started it. I really want to write an academic paper about Battlestar Galactica. I should probably join a sci-fi speed dating situation, but that inherently scares me. I see this show as a new guilty pleasure. Yay! Time wasters!

On why I'm giving up online dating

Let me be clear: by giving up I mean deleting my profiles...I haven't actually been on a date since 2007. 

I'll start at the beginning...in college there was this guy that randomly friended me on FB.  I accepted him because this was the early days of FB so it wasn't that weird yet...and he had some FB friends in common with me...the roommate of the guy I dated freshman year, the girl whose ex-bf told her the only reason he dated her is that I wasn't single at the time, etc.  I hung out with this guy once or twice (I had a bf at the time so obviously it wasn't a date)...his parents and my parents had friends in common so it wasn't as creepy as it could have been. 

But then it got worse! Starting any message with "hey beautiful" if you're not dating the person is weird...especially if you know they have a boyfriend.  Also, he gave me weird details on his devirginization process, which NO ONE in their twenties should be talking about.  But I put up with his weirdness because his family is good friends with the people who live across the street, who my mom was good friends with at the time...

And then I was interning in Berkeley for a summer.  I didn't know anyone in the Bay Area and the girls at work were kind of standoffish towards me. Also, I had just seen my exboyfriend and was heart-broken and randomly bursting into tears on the subway.  So when this guy asked if I wanted to hang out, I said yes. We've all been there.  And when we hung out, he took me to some party where everyone was talking about their I Phones and 4 Square and I just went to the bar and got wasted because it sucked.  And when he dropped me off at the subway station he took my MARC JACOBS sunglasses so I'd have to see him again.  Friends...I did not see him again.  I even defriended him on FB because he was critical of my love of environmental policy. 

Two weeks ago he text messaged me about my sunglasses.  I have moved on to Wayfarers, thank you very much. 

Anyway, the point of this long story about this awful guy is that he is on every dating site with his own name as a user name and every site recommends him to me.  Internet, I say no...Real Life has proven that this guy is a jackass of a high degree.  If your algorithms think we should be together than I refuse those algorithms!!

And that was the last straw with online dating. The end.