Plenty of Failures

Once upon a time, I started a Plenty of Fish account. Also an OkCupid account. And a FetLife account (but we're not going there right now). I didn't bother with Match.com or any of the other paid sites - including Christian Mingle and Dates for Really Stupid People Because Really Stupid People Need Love Too - because I felt like I shouldn't have to pay to find love. (Har har. You ALWAYS have to pay to find love. One way or another, bitch, you're paying.) 

As it turns out, that was a wise choice; I've talked to a few people that did pay for accounts on those sites (I'm not sure I have the name of the second one exactly right but it's close) and it would seem that their experiences don't differ that much from mine. Except they paid for the experience with money. I paid for it with hours of my life that I will never get back.

Anyway, it had been about a year since I'd even thought about dating, so I decided to listen to my friends and start these accounts. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

It was not.

A little background: I was in a really long, committed relationship with someone who passed away a couple of years ago, and of course since he was amazing and I thought we were going to grow old together and all that, I didn't want to date for a long time after he died. A lot of it was just feeling like it wasn't fair to anyone that got near me, because they would have been competing with a ghost (we always tend to canonize the dead). 

Then I was encouraged, by well meaning friends, to start an OkCupid and a Plenty of Fish account. "It's free," they said. "What have you got to lose?" they asked.

I'll tell you what I had to lose: what was left of my fucking mind, as well as my dignity.

The first online date I ever had was a guy who seemed normal, but I was smart enough to bring my wingman. She sat in the back of Starbucks while I sat with him. For starters, he was 20 minutes late. Okay, not a tragedy, but still, he could have texted me to tell me he was running behind. Then, he arrives. Now, bear in mind, he asked me if he could "take me out for coffee." So we get in line, he asks me what I would like, I order my double shot espresso, he orders his girly milkshake-looking thing. The barista puts the orders down. He pays for his. And walks away.

Just so you know, I'm not one of those women who think men should pay for everything all the time. That's just a bullshit mentality that I really can't stand. But he asked me if he could "take me out for coffee." So unless I'm completely socially backward (which is entirely possible), that means he's paying. But whatever, it's just a cup of (very expensive because it's fucking Starbucks) coffee.

We repair to a table at the front of the shop, which is located on Main St. in the downtown of a really busy tourist destination on Long Island. The sidewalks, even in the winter, are crawling with people. I wasn't really happy with his choice of seats but, again, it's not a big thing. 

He starts talking. And talking. And talking. Mostly about how wonderful he is, how exciting his life is, how busy he is...and his mom. Okay, he loves his mom, that's a good thing, right? Meanwhile, the entire time he's speaking (and trust me, it was a long time), he's looking out the window and signaling people, whom he'd apparently told to show up down Port so they could check me out. What the actual fuck? But once more, I told myself that maybe I should be flattered that he thought I was hot enough to show off and not that he just wanted to look like he had friends everywhere he went. Thinking back, it was clearly the latter, unless he wanted to be able to make jokes if I turned out to look seriously nothing like my profile picture.

The most interesting part of that conversation, however, was that, also while he was talking to me, he was texting constantly. When I started to show irritation, because that's just rude so fuck you, he said, "It's my mom."

WOT?

That's right. He was texting his mom. On a date.

Since he didn't seem remotely interested in me, I didn't bother trying to tell him anything about myself. Which was good, because while he was holding forth about how exciting it is to clean boilers in hospital basements, his mom actually called him. His mom called him, people. And he took the call.

After 10 minutes of listening to his weird ass conversation with mommy, I excused myself (to the air, because he clearly wasn't listening, or, for that matter, even aware that I was present) and went to the ladies room. Where I called my wingman and told her, "Get me the fuck outta here." I returned to the table, and she came to my rescue, babbling some story about my kid trying to reach me and we have to leave right now, Mo! That got his attention; all of a sudden he's off the phone and following us to the parking lot. Now seriously, I didn't want this guy knowing the plate number or even what town I lived in, so when it was apparent that he wasn't going away, we just stopped in the middle of the sidewalk while he continued talking and asking me when he could see me again. I said, "Call me when you break up with your mom," and that, at least, made him stop following us.

The bonus from that date was that my friend and I were laughing so fucking hard on the drive home that we wound up three towns over and completely lost.

So you can understand why I wasn't too keen on the idea of ever doing that again in my life. But then, I started looking at my life. And I had to admit, I wasn't necessarily lonely, but I was bored. And while I didn't think I wanted a real relationship, I did miss being around someone who was interested in me, at least a little.

And so, about a week later, I agreed to meet another guy. This one was from a different site, and I talked to him on the phone a few times before we met, so I was a little more confident that this date would go better than the first. Also, there was something about him that seemed vaguely familiar, and I thought, "Maybe I know him from somewhere." Which was intriguing.

Once again, we met at Starbucks (my wingman on standby). There was no confusion about the coffee because I just ordered and paid for my own, which seemed to startle him a little. There were no phone calls to or from his mom. He didn't dominate the conversation telling me what a fantastical life he had. In fact, he didn't really talk about himself at all. He seemed more interested in finding out about me.

He suggested going to a really great Spanish restaurant for dinner. My spirits lifted. We had already been talking twice as long as my first date had even lasted, and he seemed nice. So I agreed, and we walked to the restaurant.

We were seated, we ordered drinks, ordered dinner, and he kept asking me about my life. There really was something familiar about him, I thought; I was certain I knew him from somewhere, I just couldn't put my finger on it.

When the food arrived, and we were still talking about me, I asked him to tell me something about himself. Like, for instance, what did he do for a living.

"I work in healthcare," he said vaguely.

"Really?" I asked. "Are you a nurse, a physician's assistant, lab tech?"

"No, none of that," he answered, now looking at his food and concentrating on his chewing like it was a new skill he was trying to master.

"Well, what, then?" I asked,laughing.

"I work with the mentally ill," he said, "in a hospital."

That voice telling me I knew him from somewhere was getting louder.

"That's fascinating," I said, "which hospital?"

He didn't say dick for a full minute, then told me which hospital.

And then I knew where I knew him from.

He was the maintenance guy from the psych unit I was admitted to the year before when I was suicidal.

He commenced telling me that he had seen me the first night I came in, being wheeled up from the emergency room in an Ativan stupor, and he'd watched me the whole time I was there, and I was just beautiful and smart and amazing and I didn't belong with the rest of "those people" because I was just a STAR (I shit you not) that shone brighter than any other. He got really animated, and, at one point, he sent his water glass flying with his hand as he waxed rhapsodic about how I looked in my hoodie (without the string for the hood because, yeah - psych unit).

Not creepy at all. Wanna see how fast a girl can call a cab? Watch this girl right here.

I'm not saying that every man on every dating site is a creepy weirdo with a Norman Bates complex or some rapey fantasy involving mentally unstable women. What I am saying is, for me at least, there's more chaff than wheat, and I'm too old and too tired to cut through all of it. It's not worth it to me. 

I'm still absolutely interested in meeting someone, but I'm not going back to online dating ever. That shit happened over a year ago and I still get the heebie-jeebies every time I have to deal with a male nurse in the emergency room (or hear a guy talking to his mom). I'm not exactly socially savvy, and I suck at trying to make a good impression in person, which was the only reason online dating appealed to me; I figured I could put my best foot forward in writing, which I'm better at than talking, and then it would be easier in person. Oh, how wrong I was.

So I guess I'm gonna have to start wearing makeup and "outside clothes" (as opposed to "inside clothes" which is basically all the shit in your wardrobe that you wouldn't be caught dead wearing outside) when I go to 7-11 and the grocery store. And I also guess I'm going to have to start smiling at people, instead of scowling at them or ignoring them completely. It's been so long since I've done the whole "meet a guy" thing that I don't remember what the fuck you're supposed to do.

One thing's for sure, though. I am not smiling at any guy in the hospital parking lot. Ever again.