Archive for February, 2010

It’s recently been established that given the right situation, I can be a total D-bag.

Wine isn’t the only subject that elicits this type of response. Apparently, anything about which I have above average knowledge initiates the same sort of transformation. In a 72-hour time period I had d-bag interactions about:

Cheese—

Standing in the St. Killian’s, the best cheese shop in Colorado, I had some sudden unstoppable urge to divulge the fact that I have tasted every cheese in their case through my work in “the industry.” The industry? What industry? The two Boulder restaurants that have employed me and exposed me to a number of cheeses? So why did this prompt the whole, “Oh, morbier, such a fun cheese.   And the Mountain Gorgonzola, so fun.” The hippy dippy woman from Vermont couldn’t have cared less, but took her opportunity to sell me $20/lb cheeses because they were “fun.” The other Laura S., who was an unfortunate witness to the entire event, was nice enough to call me out later, much as she wanted to pour her entire San Pellegrino Limonata over my head.

Skiing—

This is old news. There was a time in college when my roommate wouldn’t speak to me for a couple of days because of how much I talked about the onset of snow season. I probably used hideous words like “pow” and “bluebird day” and talked a little bit slower like some weird Colorado hippy. D-baggery related to skiing also happened last year when I came back to Colorado (which I think I was terming “the ‘rado”) for 2 weeks and became a ski Nazi, making everyone go up at the crack of dawn and come back when the lifts closed even though my typical M.O. is to ski a run, drink a beer, ski a run, drink a beer, quit for the day.

THIS year, in the true spirit of being different than everyone around me, I didn’t ski a single day until Saturday and so had kept blissfully silent on the subject for months. And then on Saturday, I put on all of my ski gear and transformed into a horrible self-righteous being bent on proving how good I am at the sport. It started with talk: “Oh, it’s okay, I don’t need to be insane and do the hard stuff. I’d MUCH rather ski with you guys and just cruise.” And then came putting my money where my mouth is and hitting the hill with insane intensity. Okay, let’s review: I have not skied in a year. I have not done a squat in a year. I have barely EXERCISED AT ALL in a year. Guess what’s not a good idea? Skiing hard in order to be a ski d-bag. I can’t walk, and I’ll probably never be invited to another ski weekend with that crew.

Politics—

I had a fascinating discussion with Ben about the economy in Boston. By “discussion” I mean Ben had a lot of really intelligent things to say about the way the government has handled the crisis, and I kept my mouth shut and listened. Obviously, I am now an expert on this subject, so I’ve been walking around spouting his talking points (uh, and direct quotes) without citing my sources. Like this weekend, on the lifts, with a lot of people who didn’t care even a little bit and wanted to talk about how good the snow was instead of Ben Bernanke.

Lady Gaga—

Sometimes I find myself defending something with overzealous devotion only to realize in the course of my diatribe that I don’t want to be positioning myself so strongly. Instead of stopping or moderating my stance, I redouble my efforts, now trying to convince myself as well as everyone around me. This is probably okay when it’s something that invites argumentative discussion. But the battle I chose this weekend was over the talent of Lady Gaga.

After I’d made the entire ski weekend crew listen to about 19 of her songs, saying, “No, seriously, guys, she’s really good, listen,” I realized this wasn’t exactly the good fight and had to let it go. But really? Lady Gaga?

No, but seriously, she’s really good.

Oh, faithful readers. I love you so so much, especially when you think I’m funny or when I want to bitch about something. And right now, I want to bitch about something. I need to tell someone, my loves, and you are the perfect people.

I am having a particular kind of week. I am having the kind of week that makes me want to throw all of my valuables into my Audi “impulse purchase” A4 and drive 2000 miles away from Boulder to a place where I know absolutely no one and, thus, can stop having the kind of week that I’m having. I will reinvent myself and dress only in classy black clothes so as to emanate an air of mystery, sitting alone in coffee shops penning poetry and tending to my herd of cats. And I will never grow my social network to what it has become in Boulder.

Let’s begin with Valentine’s Day. You may recall that I went into Valentine’s Day feeling absolutely fine. I had no broken heart, no unrequited love of which to speak, no ill feelings other than the general squeamishness I have for kitsch on any holiday. I had a delightful single people brunch that was much more 10 people making jokes and drinking mimosas than 10 people lamenting their solitude and taking shots. I had a night at work that made me feel good about my ability to do my job.

And then my “ex” came in to my place of work to have a drink. And by “ex” I mean subject of the blog entry titled “Pathetic.” And by “came in to have a drink” I mean brought the girl he’s dating who I KNOW FROM HIGH SCHOOL. So what did I do? Naturally, I engaged in an “OH MY GOD HOW ARE YOU I HAVEN’T SEEN YOU IN SO LONG” kind of conversation, didn’t make eye contact with him even one time, and then sidled on up to the bar to have a drink or 5 with a couple of the regulars, 1 of whom is the kind of person who shouldn’t intrigue me but does.

After several minutes of slightly awkward conversation that I couldn’t comfortably settle into because of my ugly work shoes, my roommate thankfully showed up to haul me off to some stupid anti-Valentine’s Day party where we drank ¼ of an unsatisfying IPA before bailing. As the night was continuing to slip downhill, we headed home, only to find ourselves binge-eating sweets and filling out the ENTIRE eHarmony questionnaire TOGETHER for ME. WHY? WHY? Well, because someone I know was recently successful on the site, and I wanted to see who eHarmony matched me up with. So after a resentful hour of filling out 9 million questions about things that are important to me, my matches FINALLY popped up. Guess who was number 1? The regular who I shouldn’t be intrigued by but am. Fuck you, eHarmony. I deleted my account immediately. What a waste.

And then there was tonight. Do you remember the Super Bad online first date? Here, allow me to refresh your memory. Sadly, the super bad online first date blog post is not the end of that storied tale. You may have noticed I’ve become a little gun shy in my recent posts on this forum. That’s because my super bad online first date FOUND the super bad online first date entry and wrote me hate mail. Heart-wrenching hate mail. And it made me feel like a really, really, really bad person. Here I am, writing things I like to write to make other people in the world laugh at my misfortune, and I’m ruining lives. I’m making it so some young man will never date again. I’m responsible for the crushing fall of some guy just trying to make it in the world. I am a bad person.

In that entry, I noted that the last person I want to see on an online first date is a current or former fling or a guy that I think is cute and want to think I’m cool. Guess who the last person I NOW want to see on an online first date is? Oh, probably the guy that hates my guts because I talked all about our super bad online first date to the whole entire universe. Probably the guy that has every incentive in the world to make any future online date in which he sees me taking part as miserable as he possibly can. I think you know where this is going.

Maybe it’s my fault. After weeks of technological exchange with an interesting young man, I agreed to return to the scene of the incompatibility crime for a cup of coffee. It was a good set up. He had some writing to do, I had some writing to do, we thought it might be nice to spend the first hour of our real life acquaintance in complete and utter silence crafting things in the written word.

I arrived early, so as to spend a few minutes typing hastily on my laptop over a large chai tea and noted that the band was pretty good. Win. And then I looked closer at the MEMBERS of the band. Who’s playing the drums? “HI MY NAME IS —-.” Yep. Yep. Our eyes met for a few horrifically awkward seconds and the panic attack started. What was I going to do? Stand firm? Lie in the bed I’d made? Pretend it wasn’t awkward? Hell no. I gulped down my large chai, effectively burning my throat and esophagus, and began the frustrating quest for another coffee house that’s open late.

This town is too small. Get me out of here.

Be I the orchestrator or a lucky participant, I am a big fan of combined social circles. Sometimes, like when I’m the x factor or when my most social friends are the ones being mixed into the fold, I like this situation because I know it’s going to result in a harmonious interactive event in which everyone gets a business card or a phone number with which to establish a new friendship. But when that’s not the case, which is more likely, I find the affair delightful because of the awkward social politics involved.

Combined social circles often take place at parties. I’m getting better at choosing invitees, but I oft fall into the trap of inviting every single one of my friends to parties I throw because I want to look popular. This gets stressful on the day of the gathering. Hosting etiquette says you should introduce friends to each other and tell them something they have in common so as to initiate conversation. Unfortunately, sometimes the thing those friends have in common are that they’re both humans and both my friend. It doesn’t really do any good to say, “X, meet Y. You both breathe air,” or, “A, meet B. You can both talk about me for awhile.” Luckily, alcohol is a great equalizer. Give a person enough distilled grain and they’re likely to find SOMETHING in common with ANYONE. And if not, well, we can always put on a Journey song and sing along, fist-pumping in new friend solidarity.

Because of excessive alcohol consumption and the power of numbers, parties are the least awkward place to combine groups of friends from different walks of life. Where it gets tricky is when I try to plan group friend dates, because this means I have to strategically choose a handful of people to make a night out interesting.

Being a girl of diverse interests, I have a diverse group of friends. Or, I should say, diverse groupS of friends. Some of those friends are real live adults. I talk to them about real live adult things like the economy and the Obama administration and how to itemize more deductions on my tax return, usually over an expensive dinner and a nice glass of wine. Other friends really play to my occasional desire to shotgun a Coors Light, eat a greasy basket of fries, and lose some of my personal effects in a dive bar. Maturity level aside, my friends divide on every possible spectrum: democrats and republicans, city dwellers and small town lovers, highly ambitious and highly unmotivated, artists and scientists, introverted and extroverted, coffee-drinkers and tea aficionados… you get the idea. Probably the best way to combine this group teeming with varying hobbies would be to introduce like to like. That way, when one of my friends is saying 70% of the words at the table and only talking about the numerous preparations of foie gras, the other people at the table not only know what he’s talking about, but also have a word or two to say on the subject themselves.

As someone fully entrenched in Liberal Arts school values, however, I like to take the opposite approach and pick combinations of friends most likely to bait each other into controversial discussion. I always think the cross-section of interests is going to result in pithy articulate conversation in which everyone learns something new and grows as a person. Try as I might to make my real life like my college summer camp, such glorious mutual personal progress rarely occurs.

For instance, I was recently at dinner with 6 other people. We were all of the same age, same general educational background, and same relative intelligence. Moreover, everyone was well read and well versed in current events. And everyone had at least 1 very good friend present at the table, but was also meeting SOMEONE at the table for the first time. This sounds like a recipe for success, right? How could this possibly go wrong?

Unfortunately, environmental variables came into play. Before sitting down to enjoy each other’s company, our entire party had traipsed from restaurant to restaurant, trying to find a place that would accommodate everyone’s dietary restrictions and impatience with hour-long wait times. When we did choose a place, the room was a little too dimly lit for a meeting of friends, and the table was awkwardly situated for a natural flow of conversation. Half of us had been daytime drinking and were trying desperately to get our second wind. One of us had been studying for days and was trying desperately to get a life second wind. A couple of us were on a special diet that probably sucked all of our energy out from underneath us and, thus, made a second wind impossible. So of course, when the conversation inevitably turned to the political economy, the whole dialogue became a delicate dance, walking that fine line of trying hard to (appear to) respect the viewpoint of a brand new acquaintance who apparently has no knowledge of the subject on which they’re spewing opinions.

It starts innocently:

“The economy would be better if the national banks gave way to small banks.”

“I think national banks serve an important purpose, but I’d love to hear your reasoning for your opinion.”

And at some point devolves into:

“I just don’t think you have any understanding of the working class, but that’s okay.”

“I just don’t think you have any understanding of the economy at large, and I don’t think that’s okay at all.”

And then:

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

(Awkward group silence until half the party decides to go get ice cream, and the other half decides to stay for one more drink)

There’s a reason it’s taboo to talk about politics or religion in mixed company. I’m not immune. I once gave my very controversial opinion on abortion to a staunch Roman-Catholic with whom I was shamelessly flirting. Needless to say, that nipped any notion of premarital sexual relations in the bud.

I’ll get it some day, combining people in a way conducive to those magical nights that make everyone warm and toasty over the beauty of human interconnection. In the meantime, thanks for humoring my social experiments (obviously, I mean that in a completely non-genocidal way). I like to think I’m just helping us all become better more well-adjusted adults.

Oh, big surprise, this is a Valentine’s Day post. You didn’t really expect to hear silence from me on such a controversial day regarding love, did you?

Here’s the shocker, kids: I like this holiday, and I’m obviously going to tell you why.

No other holiday divides the universe quite like Valentine’s Day. No other holiday demands the entire population put a stake down on a side of the great love debate. No other holiday evokes warm toasty feelings of optimism in some and fiery burning hatred in others. And that, to me, is fascinating.

This isn’t merely the swinging singles vs. the happy couples. There are plenty of singles that rush out to fill shopping carts with candy hearts and cute little cards, dressing in pink and red and buying themselves roses. Likewise, there are plenty of couples that would rather sit at home eating Chinese food and Ben & Jerry’s than hit the saturated and overpriced restaurant scene on the day of love. The division is more like the hopeless romantics vs. the jaded cynics, and there are members of both parties in all relationship statuses.

I have to say, I get both sides. I grew up in a pro-Valentine’s Day household. Come the morning of February 14, my place at the breakfast table would be set with chocolate, Sweethearts, and pink and red hued kitsch (namely, clothing to wear to school). Valentine’s Day was as good as Halloween, only with better sweets: we were allowed to gorge ourselves on Cadbury until we barfed or surrendered. The holiday also satiated my arts and crafts itch; rather than take the easy route and purchase the popular cards with kiddie jokes on them for my friends and classmates, my mom would help us make cleverly embossed works of art. Plus, a few Valentine’s Days brought elementary school love letters and roses from “secret admirers.”

What lessons did I take from those Valentine’s Days in my formative years? February 14 is a magical day on which anything can happen. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I secretly hope for a creepy letter from a long-lost love, if only so I can bask in the glow of how desirable I am. Even sans heartfelt declaration of obsession, Valentine’s Day is also a day on which I’m allowed to gorge myself on quality chocolate, and the calories basically don’t count. Plus, red is my color. What’s not to like?

On the other hand, Valentine’s Day is a Hallmark holiday, and I’m inherently opposed to specialness as propagated by greeting cards. The jaded cynic in me acknowledges the stupidity in meaningless tokens of obligation (see also: Christmas). The lover of aesthetics in me hates cheap kitsch. The marriage of these two things makes me slightly nauseous every time I step in a national chain capitalizing on the momentarily looser wallets of America’s lovesick.

Quite frankly, romance should be spontaneous. Secret admirers take note: if you’re going to shower me with presents and expensive dinners, I’d rather you do it on a whim because you’re feeling especially mushy about me, not because it’s February 14. And I’d rather those gifts and dinners be things you know I’ll like rather than something society says you should give me. Roses die (actually, I think they’re already dead), candy makes me fat, and generic restaurants incite within me feelings of intense discomfort and rage, but an authentic tongue taco and a mix CD… now that goes straight to my heart (get your head out of the gutter, I’m talking about Mexican food).

Both of these sides of my personality manifest on Valentine’s Day whether I’m single (usually) or coupled (very very rarely). But when I’m single, I love the sympathy from my not-single friends, who speak to me with the ginger tone usually reserved for someone who just lost a close relative or tried to commit suicide:

“What are you doing for Valentine’s Day?” they’ll ask delicately.

“Oh, nothing. I’ll probably just watch a chick flick, eat some Haagen-Dazs, and think about how someday I’ll find my other.”

“It’s good to hear you’re getting through it. You’ll find someone soon. Probably when you least expect it.”

(sighing for dramatic effect) “I know. It’ll happen just when I’ve given up looking.”

“That’s the spirit. Good for you! Good. For. You.”

Likewise, I wholeheartedly enjoy the bitterness from my fellow bachelors and bachelorettes. I’ve been single for the past 4 Valentine’s Days. On each of those, I’ve had a wealth of anti-Valentine’s Day options from people who’ve opted to rechristen it SAD (Singles’ Awareness Day) Day. SAD Day options are numerous and entertaining, and oft revolve around some sort of judging activity: going to a good restaurant and judging the couples on dates, going to shows and judging the couples on dates, going to coffee shops and judging the couples on dates, going to the bars and judging the couples on dates, judging, judging, judging, all because those Other people are wrapped up in loving romantic bliss.  Then everyone drunk dials an ex and eats their feelings.

The final analysis? When it comes to the day itself, my feelings about love and romance basically neutralize each other, and I experience no emotion toward the holiday whatsoever. However, given the fact that I enjoy conflict, I engage zealously in the stand-off between the different sides of the fence. So, yay, Valentine’s Day. Controversy. Loneliness. Optimism. Emotions. Hooray.  Let the games (and meltdowns) begin.

A couple of my good friends got engaged this week. Not to each other. You know what this means? I’m officially entering that phase in my life where I’m going to be attending weddings a lot in the summers. I’m going to celebrate the lifelong love of my closest confidants. I’m really excited for all of these people, but I’m not sure I’m ready for this.

While those people were getting engaged, I woke up on Thursday morning at about 11 am with a hangover. I also had $25 in my checking account not allocated to bills, a messy room, no sheets on my bed, a pile of dirty clothes that’s threatening to cause injury due to its massive size and location, a broken phone, a broken windshield on my car, a doughy body due to my year-long hiatus from exercise, and no hint of a romantic relationship headed toward even sharing a cable bill, let alone marriage. Adding insult to injury: I went out with a guy this week who’s building a multi-million dollar company, thus making me feel even more like I’m doing nothing with my life right now, and then Berkeley rejected me from law school.

I’ve written about getting my shit together before as if it would be some kind of impetus to do so. That’s obviously panning out. I’m pretty sure I’m headed right down the track of wearing the same sweatpants for two weeks straight until I die alone and the neighborhood cats gnaw on my body until the smell reaches the neighbors. They say when you get down you should rely on good friends to pull you on up by your bootstraps, so, naturally, I took out my mental health common cold on some of my closest confidants, getting angry with them for their lack of validation and then storming off (uh, signing off the internet… like I have friends in real life) (also, sorry Ali…Tyler…Hayes…Molly…Jen…okay, stopping).

Fine, I’m going to law school next year. Fine, on Thursday I also went to a board meeting as the Director of Marketing for a non-profit. Fine, I have a few friends in real life. Fine, I have had marginally successful romantic relationships. Fine, I’ve said a hundred times that I want to be single right now. Fine, sometimes people think I’m funny. Fine. Fine. Fine. Sometimes a girl’s gotta wallow in her despair, okay? I mean, we’ve all got baggage; what differs is how we carry it (like my roommate Paige, who probably has a matching suitcase set whereas I’ve got a taped-together trash bag).

The thing is, in some ways, I can’t wait to be a real adult, waking up in my home with a mortgage, making coffee, feeding the dog, organizing the mail, going to work, making a bunch of deals, speaking at a benefit, coming home, having a glass of wine, reading in bed next to my husband, and then going to sleep only to start over again the next day… But then what? Barring the fact that that scene actually sounds marginally horrifying, the scarier thing is the idea of not having any problems to solve.

Sometimes I forget that everyone my age is trying to figure their shit out right now. Everyone wishes they were making more money or spending more time making an impact or connecting with someone on an intense level or not getting tired when they run. As life goes on, if we’re patient, we’re probably either going to figure those things out or (if we’re not patient) settle, but it’s never going to be like it is right now again. Quite frankly, it’s this process that makes us cool humans (yeah, I went there, you can thank my high school guidance counselor and 1 semester of college psych).

So, yeah, do I wish that underneath the surface I was just as shiny as I am when I’m presenting in front of real adults or charming someone on an epic date or talking about my hopes and dreams in a law school essay? Sure. But then I’d be a plastic politician. Doesn’t mean I’m not gonna wallow, but I’m also going to take Jerry-Springer-trainwreck-like solace in the fact that even if you’ve got a piece of the puzzle in place, you’re occasionally wallowing over something, too.  Let’s hug and talk about how failure is beautiful.

Few things stress me out more than an aggressive acquaintance bent on scheduling some obscure hour of my week for an obligatory catch-up coffee or drink. Don’t get me wrong here. Remarkably awkward though I admittedly can be, I like to be around most people, and a lot of those people seem to at least moderately enjoy being around me. But even with those people, I suck at structured social interaction, preferring things to happen “organically” (ie, instantly when it’s convenient for both of us). When we’re talking about a person whose presence causes me mild anxiety, I find myself expending all kinds of energy to politely avoid setting a date.

These things usually start innocently and remain easily avoidable. My favorite half-hearted attempts at getting back in touch are things like Facebook wall posts: “Hey, Laura! Long time, no talk! We should get together!” This is perfect. I’ll post something like, “Totally! Let me know when you have free time!” Then we can look at each others’ profiles and satiate that socially-required tradition of keeping in touch without ever having to meet face-to-face. Social networking. So efficient.

Phone calls are great, too, because I can let them go to voicemail. Those of you who know me well are now probably pretty concerned about your status as my friend because I let all my calls go to voicemail. A lot of you have gone so far as to ask why I even own a phone or if I’d like help in understanding how to use it. I’m sorry. The phone stresses me out even if you’re my best friend. Seriously. Ask those friends; they know exactly how much I like them, and they can’t get a hold of me either.

When someone I don’t want to talk to calls, however, I play a genius game of phone tag: I let them leave a message, and then I call back when I’m 95% sure that they’re not going to be able to answer to leave THEM a message, thus returning the ball to their court. This game can go on indefinitely until they finally give up, resorting to a Facebook message. Victory.

Less fun for me are things like text messages and emails. These require response, and are usually more direct than the impersonal wall post. These usually ask me for information on my life, which is completely fine. I’m happy to wax poetic about my life in writing any old day of the week (no, really, Laura? Do go on). The problem comes when they then try to pin me down to a date. Sometimes I’ll get nervous and accept in this format. Sometimes I’ll follow through. Sometimes I’ll make an excuse 24 hours in advance.

The absolute worst of all, though, is the face-to-face encounter. With all of the above methods of communication, the person in question is often an old friend, so even if they stress me out, somewhere, deep down, I probably kind of want to see them. The face-to-face encounter expands the types of people that can attempt to monopolize my time, and thus the layers of awkwardness that can ensue.

The politics of refusing face-to-face are harder because the other person can see your body language and hear your tone of voice. So while an email I may have sent would strike the appropriate casual tone while subtly hinting a real-life meeting is not in the cards, face time makes that balance harder to achieve. I always end up way too enthusiastic, and, then, an unwilling participant in a future scheduled event, or way too unenthusiastic, eliminating my chance of ever hanging out with that person (which is probably fine) but also looking like a d-bag.

“We should get together!”

“We TOTALLY should! What a great idea! I love getting together!”

“Uh, how about next Friday?”

“Uhhhh, yeah! Uh, let me check my calendar. Oh, look at that, free and clear. I guess we’re getting together next Friday! Great! Next Friday will be SO MUCH FUN!”

or

“We should get together!”

“… Should we?”

Moral of the story: there’s a reason why Facebook is taking over the world, and I think I’m okay with that. Oh, you forward-thinking internet geeks. Your social-avoidance topics are going mainstream.

Okay, online dating, I want the millions of hours of my life back. Given the right diversion, I can be a pretty epic time-waster. Online dating is the right diversion. I am now horrified at the amount of time I have wasted.

Part of the problem here is the incredible aesthetically pleasing forum that is OKCupid: I highly recommend this website filled with endless diversions and interesting activities aimed at finding you your soul mate. Admittedly, I couldn’t care less about finding my soul mate, but lord knows I like to reflect on how clever I am (it’s probably telling that my profile is ALWAYS in my 6 most recently viewed), so crafting a profile and taking personality tests and generally being analyzed and validated are right up my alley.

Probably 75% of the time I spend signed in on OKCupid, I’m doing things to “find out” what my dating personality is, discover what qualities I should look for in a mate, reaffirm what qualities are great about me, and note where the most matches for me live (Massachusetts… score another point for Boston). Being a hyperanalytical person, these answers are somewhat obvious to me anyway, so it’s not like I’m actually self-actualizing or learning anything new. The supposed advantage to this extensive personality testing is that the site takes all the aggregated information and matches you accordingly, suggesting men who might find me attractive or might be exactly the same. Unfortunately, when I’m left to my own devices, I look for guys that are hot and smart, regardless of their calculated compatibility. So, as with the real world, I’m pretty much stuck in my type-defined crapshoot: maybe I’ll roll an interesting socially-apt stud-muffin, maybe I’ll come up with a Jesus-loving D&D geek. Equal odds.

Validation I also receive: getting ranked highly by a member that I also rank highly generates an email telling me of our mutual interest (I wish this was a feature of real life… someone should create a live social network that could be tapped into by mobile device at a bar that allows you to publicly rate the person across the room, thus cutting to the chase instead of making coy eye contact all night and never initiating the approach). I can see who views my profile excessively and adds me to their favorite list. And I receive awards from other members telling me how brilliant my profile is. This feeds my ego. I like that. All of these little things keep me checking back, rat-at-the-feeder-bar style, for more proof that I’m awesome and everyone ever wants to go on a date with me.

Another chunk of my time is spent searching, which is delightfully like Build-a-Boyfriend—I can literally filter by everything I want (though I wish there were “hot” and “smart” filters). It’s information overload, but the sea of fish is large, and I am ready to swim. I’ll start with a local search, seeing what babes exist around the Denver-Boulder area. I’ll inevitably get frustrated, having thoroughly perused most of those, and I’ll cast a wider net to, like, the world. Then I’ll spend hour upon wasted hour clicking through exotic men in Boston, New York, San Francisco, London, Los Angeles, and a myriad of other glamorous cities with some sort of hope somewhere that one will think I’m cute, write me a devilishly charming message, keep up a romantic correspondence…. And then probably never talk to me again. Come on, all I really want is an email saying you think I’m cute even though we live thousands of miles apart… is that so hard?

I’m not the initiating type as first online dating emails aren’t my writing forum, so when I do find someone who interests me, I spend several hours excessively clicking on their profile so they’ll see me in their recent viewers and, obviously, get in touch with me. Again, hours. Stalking ain’t easy.

All of these are means to validate me and so constitute the majority of my time on the site (and, arguably, the reason I spend an unhealthy amount of time trolling the web). Letting it come to me doesn’t really help, though, because I still have to sift through all the first communications from dudes to find the ones that might be worthy of a response (namely, the guys I looked at obsessively BEFORE they sent the email). I doubt it’s just me with this problem. I’m sure all women and a lot of men have the same issue. The sheer quantity of communication is stressful—even if there are a couple of people that I’m interested in, I don’t always have the time to wittily respond (and since blatantly ignoring communication is socially acceptable in online dating, I usually don’t). This doesn’t really shave any time off the whole ordeal, though, because with all the crap, I’m living in perpetual fear that I’m going to miss someone really good because I simply get frustrated with all the bad. Therefore, I carefully comb my inbox looking for diamonds in the rough long after the messages have been sent and ignored.

A sampling of my inbox:

1. Hey, how r u?

Seriously? Obvious problems with abbreviations aside, what do you expect to be my response to that? “Fine.” End of conversation.

2. I see you like kids and dogs. Will we have one together? I think you might be my soul mate.

First of all, absolutely not. Second of all, the only reason I said I like kids and dogs is because I’d sound like an ass hole if I didn’t like kids and dogs. Seriously, who doesn’t like kids and dogs? Third of all, if the basic information section of my profile is the only thing you found to talk about, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say we don’t have much in common.

3. (Long, convoluted rambling followed by 19 questions I’m supposed to answer to “make conversation”)

I am not your therapist. I am also not your test audience for your experiment with the use of the written word (maybe you should get a blog… I hear then people have to read your convoluted ramblings whether they like it or not). And your 19 “deep” questions demanding paragraphs about everything from my life in Buenos Aires to my thoughts on heart vs. head overwhelm me to the point that I’m just going to ignore this message, no matter how much potential I initially thought we had.

I can only imagine how much MORE exhausting this part is for guys, who probably aren’t on there for all the self-validating reasons I’ve just presented. Like in the real world, the pressure is definitely on the male to initiate. Filtering through a million profiles and then crafting an appropriately witty email that may or may not get a response sounds wretched and degrading. I applaud your motivation and initiative. I’m (a little) sorry I very rarely respond.

If all of this was leading up to something, like me discovering the man of my dreams who’s going to whisk me off into the sunset and warm my stone cold heart, maybe I could justify it. But I’ve already established I couldn’t care less about that, and with my limited time left in Boulder, that’s about as likely as sweeping change in healthcare. So instead I just get the obvious opportunity cost of responding to people when things aren’t going to work out in real life. Several of the meetings I’ve had have been just a case of two nice people with no real chemistry on any level. These range from painfully awkward to pleasantly dull. And in my head, I can’t help thinking, hey, thanks for the lack of climax. Good thing I spent all that time writing clever responses so we could meet in real life and never talk again.

Oh, sure, I’ve had some uncharacteristic success, what with the whole Tyler saga, etc, but seriously, save me from myself. I probably could have discovered the cure for the common cold or solved the world-poverty problem or built a multinational corporation in all the time I’ve spent on OKCupid. That’s depressing. I cannot BELIEVE these are the days of my life.