The One with the Online Dating Game

A friend asked me the other day what I want the man I will end up with to have. I looked at him and realized that I had no real answer. My entire team (God bless their hearts) have been hard-up in finding me a man to be with. For whatever reason, I don't quite know yet, but I'm thinking that they think I need to be "happy" and finding the love of my life will ease me into a more relaxed state of mind. 

Because nobody wants to work with a b*tch, perhaps? 

Apart from the fact that I have learned almost nothing about dating in the past hiatus I have given myself, because of schoolwork, office work and some other work I have been doing (Ahahaha! This mainly means sleeping and getting a fatter a$$!), I have learned that waiting is almost inevitable in my life. 

There are days of absolute horror and I will be honest about it. There are days when you know for certain that there is no one out there - no one can ever make you feel good about yourself and you become resigned to the current status quo - that love is dead and there is only you to fend for your own sanity in this cruel, malicious and vile world. Then there are days when you try. 

In fact, I tried. I joined a dating site. 

Queue romantic music here... 

(Total shameless disclaimer: I consider everyone a candidate, much like I'm the boss and you're applying for a job. And yes, I know I don't really have the right to judge people based solely on my own personal yardsticks but I presume you know I'm single, and looking for the right guy, so for a lack of a better, polictically-correct term, I will heretofore, call them candidates. And if you don't like it, you can go check out other feel-good single-girl, non-sarcastic blog posts...) 

Candidate Number 1: The Grammarian

Just for purposes of a visual representation. He's totally not this guy, but well, he didn't look like this guy either. 

Let's call him Emmett, because the name sounds so "safe" and almost noble, like a teacher. I met Emmett online and we were an instant hit. I loved the way he intelligently formed words and sent them to me with almost minimal effort. The dating site had a chat function so we were chatting immediately. We then moved on to emailing, then to SMS, then Facebook, then more and more and more SMS. What was so amazing about it was that I didn't hide anything. It's not like I can hide ALL my pictures on Facebook... and he mentioned how cute I was (despite the pictures of my heavy-set frame crowding an entire picture...) Everyday was so amazingly happy with Emmett, because he was just a joy to talk with. If I can print a transcript of our conversations, it was fluid, happy, light and for some reason, even in the advent of SMS language, we both made sure that our messages to and from were of impeccable grammar. I even joked about it... I said that impeccable grammar turns me on (cos Lord knows mine isn't, let not my previous employers in the English school find this out). Everything about Emmett was perfect - perfect on paper, perfect in messages, he had this aura about him that I found to be so noble and sweet. He was after all, a teacher (for purposes of this blog, no one will know what he really is). Until one day, the messages stopped. No more emails, chats, his Facebook account is still open and we're still friends, but his timeline seemed to have more "chicks" than well, the other kind. I sleuth around some more and realized that his Facebook account is a collection of all these beautiful women. Some younger than me, some older, some of the same age, some of the sexy type, others looking slightly average, others looking just like me. I messaged him one last time (cos you know, I don't really have an ounce of dignity left... and yes, yes, I thought we had a real connection) and nada. 

I want to say I was depressed and life stopped. Of course, it didn't. I realized Emmett had a connection with all these women. Emmett is the serial adder on Facebook who messages you, makes you feel great about yourself and then targets the next hottie he fixates on, and that's fine. That's his thing and no one really has the right to say whether it's right or wrong. It's just that the last message we exchanged was about him and how he had problems as a child and he's overcome it. Imagine knowing that much about a person yet he doesn't seem to want to know any more about you or share more about himself. Now I know for a fact that some people may have a connection with you but may not necessarily find it to be enough to formally date you. 

It took 2 weeks for me to finally decide to close this one out. I was not really shocked, it's just that normally, guys who are shallow leave you for your looks, guys who are deeper leave you because they think you're shallow, now how am I going to classify this guy? Maybe my grammar wasn't impeccable? Did I say something wrong? Did I have that one picture on Facebook that he totally can't stand? Did I push too hard? Did I say too much? Did I say too little? I guess we'll never know. 

Candidate Number 2: The Sexy Foreigner 

He sort of looks like this guy. Only you know, bigger and stronger.  :) Enjoy ladies. Lolz. 

So around the time that Emmett "came to his senses", this guy was hanging around. Let's call him Mac, short for Machiavelli. A handsome and sensual man that has come to haunt my senses and made me feel NOT like a lady. Before you jump into any weird conclusions, he is a candidate, ergo, nothing happened. For some weird reason, any Prince Charming I meet online turns out to be a real mirage. 

Mac is a mixed-breed. His father is Middle Eastern, with a mix of Greek and a little of Filipino. He speaks languages too exotic to believe. He owns his own business. He has a kick-ass car. He has his own ways and means to woo anyone he meets. He met me online, and this is because I find him too irresistible, not because of a connection, I ended up giving him my number. The funny thing is when he added me on Facebook, he saw so many mutual friends. Guess what? Mac knows my friends and my friends know Mac. 

I feel like a cougar when I speak with him because he's only 28, but obviously way more accomplished than me. Even friends who know him say that he is quite the Prince. I obviously didn't want to let on that I am thinking of dating him. I just casually asked, and said I met him somewhere. So messages came EVERY DAY for almost 2 months. Not particularly sweet messages but very consistently, he would SMS or email or something... Just to make me feel his presence I guess. Keep in mind that I had a deeper, more meaningful connection with Emmett, and I didn't really mind just replying to Mac. He had a casual way about him. Cool. Calm. Very collected... Almost nonchalant. No drama. When Emmett stopped talking to me, I realized it was time to focus on Mac. 

Focusing on Mac meant one thing - be sexy. And when I say "be sexy", I don't mean be physically sexy. Keep in mind that on Facebook, there was nothing I hid. I wanted to know if the shallowness will kick in anytime soon, and yet Mac still hung on. So being sexy meant actually replying to some of the sexy things he would tell me on SMS or email. Did I mean everything I said, uhm, maybe? But I was more curious about what he was thinking of rather than what he was saying. 

For two straight months, we were sort of into each other. There are days when he would say that he needs me and there are days when I would say I need him. Then there are days when we are both quiet because work got in the way, or for me, schoolwork too. But never was there a day that messages didn't come - sometimes, it's a "good morning" or a "had lunch" SMS, but messages came. There are times when schedule didn't allow for us to see each other because he travels a lot and there are days when we were just simply lucky. 

So before Valentines' Day, we had a lucky streak. He had some time off for lunch and my schedule allowed for us to actually have lunch - not just a smoke break or a quick line up at Starbucks and get some coffee break. He talked about his ex and how he was really hurt when she left. He talked about his work. He talked about the stress and how he's sorry that he wasn't able to spend more time with me. Then the "talk" came. Unluckily, not from me. It was an invitation for a weekend together - which technically is a night together, I realized. It honestly felt very awkward. Don't get me wrong, it felt amazing but it felt awkward. Maybe in my mind, I was still looking for the connection - the spark, the fireworks, everything... At the back of my mind, I was mentally computing times and dates, like what's to happen if he's overseas and I'm here, alone and I need to talk to him? What happens when we want to get serious? Should we tell our friends? Are we open to telling people about us? What about the age difference? I'm older and surely that's something his parents would say something about it, or worse, his friends. Are we now exclusively dating? Am I now a girlfriend? What's going on? And so I asked, as casually and as composed as I should be... "What happens after we spend that time together?" to which he replied "We'll see...". 

I'm sure he read what's on my mind. I looked awkward. I looked scared. And when he was delivering that line, he also looked awkward and scared, maybe a little bit more than I was. 

I'm not going to bore you with the next few days and what had transpired next. The main point is, sometimes, people aren't ready. I found a consistent, handsome and wonderful Prince that wasn't quite ready to move on yet. Scary part is, I realized I wasn't ready too. All the talking and the messaging and the meet-ups and the "I'm into you" moments were born of sheer fear that I will be alone for the rest of my life. 

Maybe, just maybe, the online dating game isn't for me.


All pictures were taken from Stock Xchng, my leading provider of stock photos.