E-Meet

I don't know what I just committed myself to, I really don't. At the end of the day, I always resort to chalking   these things up as an experience. It's all it really is.

A good friend came over the other day and mentioned setting up an online dating profile for me to again, "put myself out there." I had no idea what this really consists of, but agreed to go with it since really let's be honest...my life right now consists of work, work, shop, and more work. So with that reason and that reason only, I agreed to it. I was down. After a couple of glasses of wine, and approximately 10 cookies later I was signed up for not one, but two different dating sites. I am going to stop right here and put in the disclaimer that I was formally approached by said dating site as a "selected member." So for this one I wasn't at all interested in dating per say, but more so interested in this site that seemed like the Silicon Valley edition of either E-Harmony or Match.com. It was interesting, and I wanted to see how its business model differed. After being hand selected to be one of the few to test this elite dating site, I wasn't sure if I felt flattered that I was chosen...or embarrassed that I was single? As if some alien force was telling these entrepreneurs "hey this chick right here is deathly single, hook her up."

After a couple of profile updates and avatar images later, I was all set up and ready to go with this whole new thing: Online Dating. Trust me, I'm definitely the person to pass all the judgement in the world to those who suggest meeting online and the fear of becoming one of those people definitely plagued. However, if you go in with no intention of taking any of this really seriously but just being yourself, and open to the idea - the process isn't really so bad. After all, we're stuck in this age where online is everything - so if a person is cool enough they should be reflective of that in person, right? If not...then bounceeee. My friend began clicking away on the dating site to see if I found anyone attractive. Tell me why I found someone attractive. And tell my why I found someone I thought I could totally be friends with. Am I really falling into the trap? Am I becoming one of  those girls who just creeps hard? Totally not. He just happened to pop up on my suggested matches and he just happened to have a sophisticated, but also cool edge to him. I mean, a guy who reads NY Times as well as Hypebeast? Done. Golden child. Alpha female turned on, and boom I decided to message him. It's a little aggressive but I really couldn't help myself, who cares.

The experience so far has only been a weekend but my Gmail began to flood with site notifications of people who have messaged me. This inadvertently became a confidence booster in a weird way... I don't suggest this route for anyone looking to build confidence, but to be honest it was kind of interesting to watch it all go down. The messages ranged the full gamut of the spectrum - from creepy, to deep (like deeeeeeep for a first time messenger), to friendly, to meh. I'm interested to see where this whole thing goes as I hear in New York these dating sites are a norm.

This one for sure is TBD...

First first date

I’m horrible at dating. Horrible.

So in attempt to answer correctly when people ask me if I’m dating, I decided to take on what most people call a “putting yourself out there" mentality and go for the dive.  I met this guy at a bar last night while I was out with some friends. I really had no intention of  finding dating material here as it was a friday night, and work had completely raped me this week. I noticed a man staring at me while I was dancing, who inevitably came up and approached me. Was I flattered? Not really. He wasn't my type, but I did force myself to make eye contact with him in order to practice the flirting techniques  Glamour Mag so rightfully swears by: eye contact. I decided to give this a test drive tonight because in my mind, I just honestly didn't care, I wanted to have a good time and go home. And just like any insecure twenty something year old would, I obviously practiced these so called techniques with someone I didn’t find attractive to eliminate the fear of rejection but…whatever. Baby steps. 

I ended up giving him my number because of several reasons including: 1). I was drunk, 2). He was nice, 3). I wanted a free dinner/practice date. If you reallllly wanted to get into the analytics of this, there are more benefits for me than there are cons, so long as this relationship doesn't continue. I know you’re suppose to go on dates only with people you like - but who says there are rules? Especially when I'm 23…it’s perfect to take advantage of this timing in my life. Free dinners? Why not? Free dinners AND an increase in percentage of savings? Why. Not.

This was my first time going out with a black guy. I always find them interesting, but never played into that idea. This one in particular was Jamaican and took me to a pretty cool Jamaican restaurant in the West Village. HOWEVER, homeboy was 15 minutes late after me being 15 minutes late - so truthfully…he was 30 minutes late. First thing I learned about myself #1). I’m super impatient, and I actually respect punctuality. I didn’t hold this against  him and you can tell the poor guy felt bad,  it really wasn't a big deal -  I was in  it for the free dinner anyways, but if this were a real date... this would not have pass. Next, we go in to get a table and the first thing the host asks us was if we had reservations. #2). unprepared-ness. Not a good look, man…not a good look.

He was an extremely nice guy though, already talking about taking me to other places - which was cool, but I wasn’t interested in him enough to actually spend time with him. Would rather go it alone. We continue to talk, and I soon find out he’s in hotel management.  This was super interesting to me (mainly because I had a Starwoods AMEX card and by some law of relativity...this proved relevant to me), but after a few questions and curiosities later, I found out that “hotel management" consists of managing all the janitors/maids in the hotel...and a typical day was taking inventory of all the linens and toiletries. This is impressive in its own regard, but no. There wasn’t really much to talk about with this guy - he had a good view on life which I thought was very culture driven but at the end of the day…I’d rather go take a dance class.

Nice guy, but not into it. At the end of the night, I cabbed it home and realized - this was completely and utterly fun. Even though I didn’t really like him, I enjoyed getting to meet new people and learning more about them. Not too bad. First of the first, and last of the first. On to the next, and ready for more!