Things I'm Terrible At: Online Dating

After a brief and ill-advised stint on eHarmony several years ago, (in my defense, I was marooned in the dateless sea of khaki and receding hairlines that is Washington, D.C. and may or may not have completed the personality profile as a goof after a dinner whose primary component was Sauvignon Blanc) I recently dipped my toe back into the tepid, foaming pool of online dating.

Holy crap, am I bad at this.

Deterred by the infuriatingly intricate communications process of multiple choice questions, followed by open-ended questions, followed by open-ended chatting, followed (FINALLY) by actual communication -- and by the fact that, back in D.C., they set me up with a Tourette's patient who asked about butt sex on our first date -- I eschewed eHarmony this time in favor of everyone's favorite virtual dive bar pick-up scene: OKCupid.

Within the first 24 hours, despite what I thought was an engaging and appealing profile that neatly straddled the line between "Fun!" and "Don't you dare message me if your only thought is getting your little head wet," I had been matched with:

a) a bartender from my local watering hole whose name my friends and I precede in conversation with "Weird," because holy crap is this dude Weird, Capital W

b) my boss

c) a certain attractive gentleman who rejected my amorous advances last summer (Thanks for reminding me, OKStupid)

d) at least a dozen residents of the great state of New Jersey, sarcasm intended

e) at least another dozen married people trolling for tail

Seriously? This is what I've been missing by not online dating? I could've found these guys all by myself in any given 24-hour period with nothing more than my Facebook friends list and a trip to literally any bar in New York. I'm off this site. What's next? Tinder, you say?

Fucking Tinder? Don't get me started. I'm convinced I'm doing it wrong. After patiently weeding through heaps (HEAPS!) of pics and right-swiping with discretion and certainty, I'm currently running a roughly 95% rate of immediate "It's a Match!" success.

Among those matches, I'm currently running a roughly 20% rate of interacting beyond "It's a Match!"  Among those I've interacted with, I'm currently running a roughly 100% rate of crappy grammar and offensively lazy come-ons.

Seriously, guys, I know it's a hook-up site, but if, "yo u wanna hook up?" is the best you can do, I reserve the right to scrunch my nose in disgust and viciously left-swipe away huge chunks of the single male population. It's hard to believe that the Y chromosome you're packing is good for anything more than transforming once-adorable boys into leg-humping canines circa puberty.

At this point, I think I'm back to -- gasp -- actual dating. Meeting real humans. Face to face. If only because, honestly, it simply can't get any worse.

I hope.

Note: If you do manage to find me on Tinder or OKStupid, go ahead and say hello! Worst-case scenario for both of us is a follow-up post here. I'll totally give you a fake name that doesn't start with "weird." Just, y'know, don't be Weird, Capital W.