Nice Guys and Nazis

My first date was in 1981. I’ve been dating ever since and I’m exhausted.

I thought online dating would bring my life’s extended courtship phase to an end and I must admit that most of the men I’ve met online are nice. The problem is, nice is the most passionate adjective I can supply to describe them.

A few weeks ago I had coffee with Average Joe. He was nice, really very nice. Nice looking, appropriately dressed, polite, and gainfully employed. While he was explaining auto insurance rates for the hard to insure, I tried to imagine spending my life with this average Joe; your typical nice guy. It was then that I began to understand why the entire country is on antidepressants. Only a hefty dose of Zoloft could make this imaginary really very nice life stimulating.

More recently I was pleasantly surprised when I received an enthusiastic response to my profile from a man whose screen name indicated he was Swiss. I never could resist a man with an accent? I sent him my phone number so we could make a date. When he called I did a quick mental scan of European geography and realized that the Swiss accent would not be romantic, instead my new exciting foreign man sounded like a Nazi – as in “Vwhere are your papers.”

I asked the Nazi to meet me at Zinc in Corona del Mar for coffee and he asked me to spell Zinc.

Judy: “Zee-Eye-En-Cee”
Nazi: “OK, yes Cee-Eye-En-Cee, Cinc, I’ll see you there.”
Judy: “No, it’s Zee-Eye-En-Cee. Zee as in Zebra, not Cee as in Cat, Zinc.”
Nazi: “Oh Zee, not Cee, Which Cee is a Zee?”

“Vhere are your Papers!”

Last weekend I met the Nazi in person (at Zinc with a Zee) and I was pleasantly surprised to find a tall attractive man who was obviously comfortable in his own skin. Usually my online dates are nervous. We talked about who knows what and I didn’t care because I thought I felt a spark. As the Nazi told me about his golden retriever, I glanced into my half full cup of coffee and wondered if the barista had accidentally poured regular instead of decaf. I’ll never know what was actually in that cup of coffee but I knew after an hour that I wanted to go out with the Nazi again.

Yeah – I wanted a second date! I was making real progress.

That evening I thought about my next post:

Every once in a great while you will meet someone who is attractive or exciting and you’ll get the spark that thankfully breaks the monotony of first dates.

Two days later I contemplated another post:

After you’ve worked for weeks perfecting your online profile, spent days reviewing and emailing prospective dates, endured countless hours of really very nice first dates, you’ll eventually feel a spark.

Here’s the gruesome concealed catch, this attractive exciting man who has sparked your desire, has to feel a spark too.

You see, the Nazi didn’t call. The dating equation is much more complicated than I first thought it was. I don’t just have to find a guy that I like; he has to like me back.

This just might take forever!

Day 7 - Daveed's Code

My Match.com connections to date.
371 views
12 winks received
4 winks sent
7 emails received
2 requests for dates

I'm sure there is a stats project here but I'm just not up to it today and nobody would care anyway. Besides, I'm dating now and nothing says geek more than a complicated math reference.

I haven't set a date yet. I must leave some excitement for next week. I've read at least 100 profiles describing fun, exciting, intelligent, and caring individuals. I haven't learned too much about anyone but I have made a lot of mental spelling corrections for these intelligent and sometimes 'intertaining' people. Me, the girl who can't spell. My mother once told me that she had failed me because I wrote her from college letting her know when I would be 'comming' home. (If you don't see the jokes, run spell-check.) Needless to say, I try not to judge on spelling or grammar because, well, people in glass houses and all.

A few men did sound interesting. Here are the highlights.

1. 39 years old, 6 feet tall, PhD, some sort of scientist....
but he's posted pictures of his pet, which isn't uncommon, but his pet is a bird. All I can think of is how filthy a bachelor pad with a bird must be. The bird is kind of cute, but those who know me also know that one drop of guano on anything I own and I'm out the door. One must draw the line somewhere and I draw it at birdie poopy.



2. 6 foot 5 runner. Francesca says he's nothin special but I thought we had a lot in common and when he sent me his pictures he was kind of cute. I was reviewing his profile with my friend Daveed and was quickly informed that men who don't post pictures with their profiles are married. What??? Mr 6'5" is married and looking for some action on the side? We'll see. He's asked me out and I gave him my phone number. If he only calls me from the office we'll be suspicious.

3. 41 year old OC average joe. 6 feet tall. Cute enough. Divorced. I also reviewed this profile with Daveed and learned more Match.com code. 6 feet means 5'10". Always subtract 2 inches from the height if they're under 6'1". Check the age and then check the picture again. If they're 45 or older you can usually add 3-8 years to their age. Joe looks 41 but I'll have to wait and see if the height is embellished.

Next week should be interesting. I might even go on a date. Stranger things have happened. If there are no dates next week, get ready for the stats lesson.

Ms Francesca's Rules

Today I checked out eharmony. The personality tests seemed cool but they took almost 30 minutes. I figured that 30 minutes was a good investment in my future happiness. When I was done with the testing I asked the eharmony genie for my matches. I waited with anticipation as the screen counted down the seconds until my perfect love matches would appear.

Tada....I got 5 matches and all of them lived at least 45 miles away from me. I had to pay to join if I wanted to find out much more about these potential soul mates but alas I spotted a button that said 'find more matches' so I decided to roll again. My response, "sorry, there are no more matches for you right now." Am I that difficult to match? A nationally advertised dating site and all I get are 5 guys within a 100 mile radius of my home. This was not encouraging.

I went back to match.com to see what treasures it had for me today. It said that my profile had been viewed 144 times since I had posted my picture. "This is fantastic," claims Francesca, my internet dating guru.

Francesca and I had dinner last night so that she could fill me in on the match.com norms.

1. The guys do the emailing.
I was surprised to hear this. No man I new was going to design a search, thoughtfully review the results, and then actually compose an introductory email.

2. If the guys are interested, they'll wink. Then you wink back if you're interested. Then the guy will send an email.
This sounded a little more encouraging since the guy would only have to exert some effort if he already knew you were interested.

3. It takes 17 dates to find a real match. I accepted this with the caveat that I would count meeting for coffee at starbucks a date. I wasn't going to spend 3 hours each with 16 marginal men just to find one match. For the love of God, I'm already 39 and I'd like to find someone before the end of the decade.

With these rules in mind I clicked on the 'who's viewed me' button. All different types, ages, hairstyles, facial hair, hats, clothing, and lack there of. A few of them had winked at me and I returned one wink. He emailed and suggested meeting. I'll keep you informed. Only 16 more to go.

As for Ms Francesca's rules. I keep winking at the cute men before they've winked at me. I'm curious to see if this works of if it's just the tell tale sign of a desperate woman.

Day #1

It's Valentines Day 2006, the perfect day to start my internet dating diary. I've been getting ready for Match.com for weeks, dragging my stupid digital camera around everywhere, asking just about everyone I see to take my picture. After all, I want to look like I have a very active life. Pictures at the golf course, on vacation, at restaraunts with friends, with my running group in our running clothes... No one takes your picture the way you really are, laying in bed, hair in a ponytail, wearing glasses, eating popcorn while watching Desperate Housewives.

More than 25 pictures later, I chose a self portrait for my headline picture (above). This is me on a Sunday night during Desperate Housewives. This is the real me. Those are my stairs in the background and if you look closely, you can see a bit of my fat cat George in the upper right hand corner. I cropped out as much of him as I could. I don't know this for a fact but I'd bet that single women who post pictures of their cats on Match.com don't get much action.

I'm arranging my first dates this week. I'll keep you informed.