World Wide Web of What in the Hell - Why Online Dating is Scarier than being Single

Last week, standing in the kitchen at my parent's place, I chatted to my mum about yet another childhood friend's impending engagement and the catch she'd found. As she listed each positive quality on the IndianWedding5 (a checklist for all marriageable prospects - e.g. profession that is either doctor, lawyer, engineer, MBA etc., comes from a good family, tall, wheatish complexion and 'pleasant') she lamented that I was going about finding love in all the wrong ways.

"These online dating sites have nothing and no one useful on there!" She exclaimed, shaking her head side to side in disapproval.

I looked up from washing the dishes and raised my eyebrows.

"Mom, you don't need to convince me, it's traumatic out there. I am no longer on those sites. Don't you read my blog?"

She looked at me skeptically but remained silent. If only she knew.

As I thought about her words later that night, I recalled a terrible blast from the past in my online dating days and then I felt like I just couldn't not share it on my blog. So in the spirit of reflection and the privilege of hindsight, here's a laugh for you at my expense. As you read this, you may think I'm lying or exaggerating or embellishing, but I only wish I was. Unfortunately, I endured every minute of this and I just want you to know, it wasn't worth it.

Now admittedly, for a person whose entire stimulus in a relationship is the conversation and who is rarely ever attracted to men who are conventionally good-looking (my sister will seriously be clapping as she reads this) I was always an online dating skeptic at the best of times. But once in a while, even I needed a break from being hopelessly devoted to never-ending flirtationships. So being the Australian woman I am, I decided to give it a fair ago on a balmy, lonely Sunday night about a year ago.

Hours later, I was scrolling through what can only be described as a human emotional junkyard, checking out profiles of retired plumbers, school teachers with photos that the police should probably be SERIOUSLY checking out, guys majoring in ‘Sighence’ or maybe they meant séance (which is equally scary) and men who are looking for a woman who can ‘help me better meself’ (or maybe even better their English if they’re lucky). At first, I was mortified. Is this really the quality of what’s out there? But that was before I even got to the usernames:

‘Moobs1978’

‘FunnyANDhotANDcharming’

‘Avarageguy4u’

‘Devilisdisguy’

What kind of self-respecting woman would covet a relationship with a man who identifies himself in one word as ‘Moobs1978’? Your male breasts are the one and only thing I DON’T need you to bring to a relationship and that’s what you choose to highlight about yourself? Even better is the Avarageguy. What a sales pitch; telling the entire world you’re just like everyone else and you can’t spell, you’re just the ‘avarage’ guy. Anyway, so I didn’t feel like a total judgmental bitch, I decided to stay online and wait for moobs to contact me. Unfortunately he didn’t (bummer) but plenty of other moobheads did.

Just as I was about to lose all hope after receiving my last message from some guy named ‘FunnynSweetCharmerxxx’ (I know right, why did I even add him?) asking me if I like cuddles and then asking me if I like naked cuddles (like how dumb do you think I am? Just say SEX, FOOL), I suddenly saw the little blinking tab above say I had a contact request. Saying what the hell, why not another one before I finally go to bed, might as well amuse myself so I can dream about it later, I clicked open and found a profile of what finally, seemed like a normal, smart, pretty good looking and grammar-literate guy. He was a musician by passion, worked in Telecommunications Management by profession and was traveling the world at the time. He was funny, direct, had good spelling and seemed like a down-to-earth guy. I finally let my inner skeptic die for five minutes and clicked accept. I mean, what’s the worst that could happen?

As soon as I added him, he sent me a friendly, ‘Hello’ to which I responded appropriately. He asked how I was, how my night was going, why I was on the site. All normal so far. He hadn’t mentioned the words, ‘Doodie, Plaything, Butthole or Lolzzzzzzzz’ yet, so he was already winning by a mile. I told him as such. We laughed about the poor quality of the people on the site, he told me about his travels and voila, 3 hours later, I was falling asleep but desperately trying to keep my eyes open so I could continue talking to him. It was finally a connection! The next morning, this continued, as did it the next day, the next day, the next day, the next day and many more after that. I was finally hopeful that I had met someone on a dating site that wasn’t a freak, hadn’t been seen on ‘To Catch a Predator’ (best showwwwwww EVA!) and wasn’t going to turn out to be a female or a butch guy named ‘Lars’ (please no, please no, please no). But when it seems too good to be true, it always is.

After 2 months of talking, he finally returned from his trip and we decided to meet up. I was sick to my stomach nervous, having practically been in a pseudo-relationship with this guy for 2 months and wearily holding my heart back from being invested because he could still turn out to be a guy who wears clown wigs for fun or a giant, giant obese man named Tiny. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t getting in over my head. Finally when the day came, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t drink, I couldn’t concentrate at work the entire day. I paced around, my colleagues all aware of my pending date, telling me I was going to be fine, but all I could think was, what happens if it works? For some reason, the thought of it actually going well was scaring me and I found myself actually hoping he would be a freak. Well, as I slapped on my makeup at 6:00pm, put on some boots and fluffed my hair, I had to hope no longer, because he was.

In a bustling bar on the corner of Bourke Street in Melbourne, as soon as I walked in, I recognized my suitor. He was, indeed, handsome, he was indeed, brown-eyed and blond, he was indeed, as tall as his photos. But turns out, he also was indeed as cray as a Crayola and I was about to find out why. His first comment was, ‘Nice shoes. They fit your feet nicely’. Now, to any woman, getting a guy to notice her shoes is a BIG ASS DEAL, but I mean, to say that as the first thing to a woman you’ve never met? I instantly thought, ‘Foot fetish?’ He really should’ve started with a ‘You look nice’ or a ‘You’re really hot!’ which are also both true. Anyway, I told myself not to be such a judgmental snob, and give the poor guy a chance.

Half an hour later, he was drunk. Pray, tell, you say, how can someone get drunk in half an hour unless they’re doing back-to-back tequila shots? I’ll tell you how. WHEN THEY SHOW UP DRUNK. Apparently in his ‘nervousness’, he had had one too many scotches back home and was now sitting in front of me like a limp goldfish, tongue out, asking me if I was really brown (yeah DUH, Indian would mean brown, son) or if I’d gotten myself tanned and painted just for this occasion. I couldn’t even dignify it with a response. In a bid to distract him from his own idiocy, I attempted to get him to talk about his work or his music, but his only response was that his job sucked and one day he would make enough money playing guitar because he knew he was the next John Mayer and besides, John Mayer actually sucked, so he was the original John Mayer.

As a John Mayer fan, I was already SIGNIFICANTLY put off, so I pretended not to hear him and rolled my eyes. The kicker of the night came when we ordered dinner and he proceeded to order for me without my permission. Steak. I do not eat beef. Thanks for asking, not. I knew I wasn’t going to eat anyway, so I let him order whatever (he was paying, TRUST ME, HE WAS PAYING, because I was already paying). Just as I thought he was getting settled and sober, a woman walked past in the tightest, most fitted dress I have ever seen, that even if you wrapped a crepe bandage around her, that wouldn’t have been as tight. She was sauntering past, flicking her Pantene hair side-to-side, her hips moving like Jennifer Lopez’s in ‘Love Don’t Cost a Thing’. Equally mesmerized as I was, I did not however do what my date did next.

‘Excuse me GURL! GURL!’ He shouted.

‘Yes?’ Pantene-Tight-Butt turned around.

‘YOU SO FINE. YOU ARE, WOW. SO MUCH BETTER THAN HER.’ He shouted.

Pantene-Tight-Butt’s eyes bugged out. Then she broke into a smile. But it wasn’t a ‘Oh no, I’m so sorry your date is a douchebag’ smile. NOPE. It was a ‘Oh honey, it must be so hard to sit here and live your life while I’m alive in front of you. You dress isn’t even tight’ smile.

‘Oh honey!’ She shook her head.

‘UM, what did you say?’ I responded to Banjo-Boy

‘I said, SHE IS WAY, WAY HOTTER THAN YOU. RIGHT?’

As soon as the last words came out of his mouth, I had already stood up. I said what any self-respecting independent brown woman would say.

‘Oh HYELL NAH. You’re going home, alone, FOREVER.’

With that, I spun on my heel and shoved my way past the diners in the restaurant, somewhat amused, somewhat horrified. At first, I felt like I really wasn’t hot enough. Maybe I’d been so judgemental the whole night and he had to drink just to get over what a ponce I was. Then I remembered, I had to marry one of these men one day and if that was the best I could do, I’d rather die alone with my standards.

Needless to say, a flood of apology texts and calls followed in the coming days citing this excuse and that for his behaviour including a bizarre one detailing some illness he’d probably made up that required him to drink Brandy once a night (yeah it’s called ADDICTION MORON). He promised the world, even sent flowers and all I could do was not screenshot his messages and share them on my dating profile. I went back on the website to find a barrage of messages from retired carpenters and 50-something Sugar Daddies looking for a young girl to entice and spoil and decided then and there, being a freaking cat lady was better than this.

So Mum, I leave you with only one piece of wisdom:

“Why do we say there are plenty of fish in the sea…My life is not a sea. I don’t want to date a fish. I want a human boy with a face and stuff.” – Some Wise Person on the Internet.

Truth.