Further details about how computers suck, especially when they pretend to be human:
I don’t think the people eHarmony.com matched me with are even real. Some selections from the suggestions they emailed me (emphasis mine):
Kim (Alexandria): It’s important for me to make new friends, and to keep physically fit.
amy (Abingdon): It’s important for me to be in settings where I will meet new people, and to keep physically fit.
Amy (Baltimore): It’s important for me to create romance in a relationship, and to keep physically fit.
Really, ladies? Really? Guess what went in my profile?
Jemal (Glen Burnie): It’s important for me to hunt you robots down and kill you before you and Skynet take over the world on judgement day and to keep physically fit.
Here’s the sad part: these three “ladies” were sent to me sequentially within 20 minutes. Great minds think alike, eh?
So here’s a little story about how computers suck:
As some of you know, I’m the kind of person who likes to agonize about things for 9 months before doing anything about them. Buying a car? Gotta research, gotta test drive, gotta agonize. Getting a loan? More agonizing. But what you may also know is that I’m also a multitasker.
So I figured that I wasn’t planning on even thinking about the concept of dating until December or later. I didn’t think you should go on a date when all of your stories start with, “my late wife once said,” or “when my wife died,” and your interests and hobbies are “grieving” and “crying” respectively. But at the same time, I knew that when I finally decided to do some dating, I was going to have to agonize about that for a while. So why not grieve and agonize at the same time?
Add that to the fact that a friend at work suggested that I look around at Match.com to find people who are even more pathetic than me to laugh at, and guess who had a profile? Hey, you got it in one!
It wasn’t much of a profile since it actually said, “I’m not looking to date anybody and am only using this to check out profiles - please don’t talk to me.” Not that this prevented people who live a thousand miles a way and look surprisingly like escorts from trying to send me messages.
Where this becomes interesting to you (let’s hope) is that every so often the site sends you a list of people who “match” you. And this is fun in itself, because you get to play the “next level” game. This is like when you’re a kid and the doctor says “this won’t hurt” and you know that means it’ll hurt a little. And if he says, “it’ll hurt a little” you know it’s gonna hurt a lot. Right? Well when you look through the profiles you discover that “slender” means “a few extra pounds,” “a few extra pounds” means “overweight,” and “overweight” means, “HOLY SHIT WHAT THE HELL DID YOU EAT? LET GO OF MY LEG!”
That’s not to say that you don’t get all types. In fact, there are some cute folks on Match.com. Case in point, one of the first pics they sent me wasn’t too shabby, but the angle was sketchy. People have learned every trick in the book to hide neck fat, etc. I certainly did. But regardless, she was an okay looking girl. That’s not the problem. The problem was the second pic. The “match” that they sent me? That match is HUGGING former speaker of the house Newt Gingrich. Republican poster-boy Newt. Conservative-to-the-core Newt. How the hell am I matched with a girl that would a) go to one of his signings and b) not stab him in the face?
Which brings us to problem 2: her username was snowflakeGOP. Now the GOP is obviously to indicate that she’s a Republican. And hey, that’s fine and dandy. Odd that they matched her with somebody who listed himself as “ultra-liberal,” but whatever. The problem is that once you identify as conservative, snowflake starts making me nervous. Are you interested in winter sports? I don’t see that in your profile. Or are you calling attention to your whiteness? Why would you do that? OH SHIT ARE YOU SOME NEO-NAZI?!!?! WHAT THE HELL?!?
So there’s my review of Match.com: they set you up with your enemies.
Lately I’ve been feeling pretty adventurous. Over the course of my life I’ve waffled between a complete openness to new things and a desire for sameness and consistency. As a child I was terribly picky, but once I left home and realize that nobody was going to make food like Mom (actually Dad, most of the time), I started trying all sorts of new food, and new experiences.
So here are some of the new things I’ve been trying lately:
I’m having a wonderful time, in fact, and she’s an incredible young woman. Smart, accomplished, sweet, pretty, kind, and all sorts of amazing - quite an impressive lady. I’ve been nervous to talk about it, not because I’m uncomfortable with what’s going on - in fact, the defining quality of the relationship is its natural-feeling awesomeness - but because I know that some of my friends haven’t gotten to a point where they feel okay with the idea. No, it’s not their business, which is why I haven’t let them stop me, but I don’t want to make anyone else unduly uncomfortable. Trust me: I know how weird this is. But obviously the grieving process is different for somebody who occasionally thinks about Kellie’s death and a guy who has spent the last six months confronted with it every waking and most sleeping hours. Let’s say that I’m on the crash course.
Regardless: I was terrified as to what it would be like to re-enter the dating pool after all these years of married life, but somehow I lucked out. I met a girl on an online dating site, chatted her up innocently in email, met her for lunch, and immediately found myself deeply smitten. What’s funny is that it’s all this incredible coincidence: neither of us thought we were in the right frame of mind to be dating, I certainly never planned to be looking at this point in my life, and quite honestly, we wouldn’t have been right for one another if we’d met when we were younger. But she’s surprisingly similar to me in attitudes, opinions, interests and outlook, and more surprising still is that neither of us is annoyed by our similarities. I’m gob-smacked by how well it’s going.
So that’s how things are for me. Any questions?