My Match Adventure

My Nana married a man she met online. My best friend is engaged to man she met on eHarmony (I think?). Although a marriage proposal is not even remotely close to what I'm looking for these days, I decided to give online dating a try when I saw a promotion on match.com. If nothing else, it might let me try a few new bars or restaurants in the area and maybe I'll meet a few friends since I'm still new to the area.

It started out as a source of entertainment every Sunday. I didn't take it seriously and it was fine by me if it didn't result in any dates. My girlfriends and I would lay around one of our apartments every Sunday afternoon, laughing hysterically at all the amusing profiles out there. Some people just don't have "the moves". I got a few e-mails, which made us laugh even more. I know I have grammatical errors and spelling errors on this blog plenty but these e-mails were on a whole new level. Big turn off. Pass. One guy just said "hey." Eh, sorry. Thanks for playing. Try again.

I was on the phone with my sister one day when I got another match e-mail. My eyes caught the word ninja and I started reading the e-mail out loud to her thinking it would be the epitome of weird pickup attempts. We were nearly in tears by the end of reading his profile, not because he was so weird but because he was straight up hilarious.

I slept on it, showed my friends, and decided to actually write him back. After a few rounds of e-mails, he asked when I was free for drinks...wait...you mean I'd actually have to go on a date with someone? A total stranger? Uhhh...that sounded awful. He could stand me up or be awkward or rude or clingy. And I'm enjoying being single anyway so really, what's the point? But my friends convinced me it might not be that bad and worse comes to worse, we have another funny story to share over dinner. Since funny guy stories are our specialty, I took one for the team.

I survived and didn't hate it. I've only gone on a few official dates and I throw all rules out the window. I forget what topics to stick to, I don't have any "moves" and I just am myself. I definitely had a few blonde comments and talked about an ex briefly but whatever, I was me. We laughed, he bought me a beer and it really wasn't that awkward. It could have been much worse. Whew, ripping the band-aid off didn't hurt as bad as I thought.

No idea if we'll talk again, which is fine by me. He's a cool guy but I'm not trying to date seriously. I'm just glad it wasn't a God-awful horror story. My membership ends next week and I will not be paying money to renew it. I will stick to the traditional ways of bar hopping with girlfriends for potentially cheaper results.