Why Internet Dating is like drinking with Billy Joel...

Last week, I was asked to submit a writing sample to be considered for a staff position on a dating blog.  The sample had to be a "funny, bad" experience from dating.  Unfortunately, I never heard back, but I still thought the sample was funny enough to share.  I apologize for my lack of creativity on this one...

Else was the kind of girl you fucked as a favor for a non-profit organization.  I’m not saying that to be cruel, or catty; she was one of the most emotionally fragile people I ever met.  Of course, the beauty of internet dating is the ever-present mixed bag of emotional desperation.  People, whose median age is usually twenty-seven, who cling to a thriving fear of solitude, or willingness to try bisexuality – that’s the fun we’re all missing out on. 

I only speak so harshly out of a certain amount of self-loathing.  In the summer of 2007, I got real lonely/horny and decided to register on one of New York’s hip dating websites in a beleaguered attempt to find a girlfriend/fuck buddy/one-nighter to pine over for six months.  Let me specify right now: I wasn’t angry at myself for actually going out with anyone I met on the site.  I was more irritated that I allowed myself to fall into my typical trap of thinking that I would legitimately find a significant other.  Without going into explicit detail, I’ll simply say that I’m not one of those guys who is incredibly afraid of monogamy.  I just also think that everyone else in the New York dating pool is crazy.

Within two weeks, I had met a fair share of young women my age who confirmed my theory.  Among my favorites was the publicist who “didn’t play the favorites game” – as in: no favorite book, favorite movie, favorite dead member of Motley Crue.  As the night wore on, I found her to be among the people in this city that I call “boring.”  True enough to the nature of our intentions though, we still barhopped for three hours, fought, made out on the corner of Ninth Street and Fourth Avenue in Park Slope, and I still called her the next day.  I hung up when I realized the sound of her voice gave me a headache.

Else was no different… so why talk about her, then?  Because she was the only one of the eight or nine women I dated that summer from the website that had no defenses.  She was incredibly vulnerable, intimidated, and short on conversation.  Going out on one date with her made me feel as if I were building the pyramids alone.

We met at a bar in Brooklyn that I had visited once before.  The decent tap prices and backyard patio seemed like a sound neutral ground to start on.  Else texted me to say that she was running late, I offered to order her a drink.  She arrived to two Stella Artoises and me being completely shell-shocked.  I wouldn’t have called her “unattractive,” just not really my type.  Also, I had forgotten that she was five foot four – I’m five nine and a half.  None of this would have bothered me had things ever actually ever gotten lively that night.

Me: “Hey.  Else?”

Else: “Yeah.  Matt?”

Me: “Hey; I got you a Stella.”

Else: “Thanks.”

Me: “Rough train ride?”

Else: “Yeah.”

Me: “Gotta love the R.”

Else: (with a sudden rapt interest) “Really?  Tell me more.”

(awkward pause.)

Me: “Uhhhhh… really?”

Else: “Um… yes?”

I know what you’re thinking.  “Maybe she was nervous.”  “Maybe she’s just a nice, shy girl and you’re some New York asshole who doesn’t understand anything genuine.”

Both valid points.

But here’s the thing: she was struggling to start conversation.  She struggled so much so that, had I not been talking through ninety percent of the date, the whole night’s script would’ve been like something out of Beckett.  She was really interested in hearing whatever I had to say about being an actor and doing improv and comedy; she was actually encouraging me to continue talk endlessly.  At one point, I finally said:

“But the fashion industry… that must be pretty cool.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

"…"

This date was slowly turning into that formulaic date nightmare we all used to watch on T.G.I.F.  We were actually staring at each other at one point.  Blankly.

But that’s not where the real sadness started.

She noted that I sound pretty ambitious for twenty-four (at the time).  I said I was just trying to make the most of my time while I had no major commitments.  Then, she said the line that official killed any chance of… well, anything:

“Oh, to be young again.”

She didn’t say it in an ironic way.  She didn’t say it as if to relate to the years in a young person’s life that qualifies as “struggling.”  She said it in a genuinely disaffected tone of resignation, as anyone who has given up easily would.  You want to know why this was all so tragic to me?  She was twenty-seven.

I tried to note that twenty-seven still doesn’t really set anything in stone; she begged to differ.  What followed next was a biographical litany about this girl that caused the tension to become so awkward, that my first make-out session – in eighth grade, behind a savings bank, in front of three other people – could only equal such an event.  She had everything: the sister she never talked to, the porn-addicted dad she had acceptance issues with, the polyorifice mom who dumped dad for another woman, who in turn dumped mom, who is now living in a tree commune in Maine having sex with the wind spirits.  Then there were the ex-boyfriends: the bad lay, the asshole, the library sciences major.  I felt incredibly sorry for asking.

Though I felt even worse for Else: the poor girl had been through a lot of shit that ate her alive.  She wasn’t concerned about happiness, she was concerned with being liked.  So much so, that I was allowed to barrage her with a wall of sound for an hour and a half – any time I talk for more than three minutes, no one should be listening.  Somewhere in her life, everything just came to be: she embodied the fear that every young person in New York has to them.  To quote Queen, she just wanted somebody to love. 

I, unfortunately, was not that person.  I could’ve been if I wanted to – in the past, I would’ve tried.  If I were more of an idealist, I would have wanted to save this girl.  But I’ve been down that acid test road that eventually leads to relationship toxic shock syndrome.  It isn’t pretty, and it was enough for me once to never want it again.  In this case though, I did the least, yet most gentlemanly thing I could do: I picked up the tab.

The date started at 7:00 and was over by 8:30.  I walked her to her train at Atlantic-Pacific Street.  As my cover to the early end, I made-up some excuse that I was shooting hoops on West 4^th Street with the Reebok Street Team.  Else actually asked if she could come by and watch; Christ.  We hugged good-bye and, by very stupid impulse, I kissed her on the cheek.  She looked at me and said “You’re not one of those guys who walks a girl to her train, makes out with her, and then doesn’t call, right?”  Makes out?  “No, I’m not.”  We parted after that.  Maybe rightfully so, I received an embittered e-mail from her a week and half later telling me to fuck off.

There is no doubt in my mind that I did the right thing in never seeing Else again.  Of course, that doesn’t mean I don’t hope for her to find someone.  I would like to say that Else was the last one of that whole internet dating quagmire.  I would like to say that that summer was my only time I ever frequented the site.  I would really like to say that I never went on to meet more women from it as a way to kill a boring Saturday night.  Not the case though.  It never is with us brazen, fearful, ready-to-crumble-at-any-moment New York singles.

It never is.