Happy Monday after Thanksgiving, faithful readers! Never in my life have I wished more that there were a font that inflicts sarcasm than I do right now. I am at work after a five-day weekend, and it is destroying my will to live…

That said, I did not conduct any experiments with any subjects last week, due to the holiday. As such, I have nothing to write about now (sad face), but I do have a special treat lined up for you instead (happy face)!

Starting tomorrow and through Friday, I will be editorializing (read: piping up on my soap box) about the ins-and-outs of online dating. Any questions you have? Leave them in the comments, and I’ll try to address them. Otherwise I will be covering everything from profile enhancement and communication etiquette, to theory and execution behind meeting that special someone via the interwebs. Pay close attention, because I’ll try to fill my rantings with helpful links to resources and opinions of people who know a thing or two about online dating.

So get excited for a peek inside the professional (and perhaps personal) life of Dr. Jane, the online blind dating researcher!

Also, I set up a Twitter account, so start following me, and you may just get a few live-tweets from upcoming dates! Dr Jane: @dbeid on Twitter.

Thanks for reading, and check back all this week for everything you ever wanted to know about online dating from the most qualified end user.

I now understand the “stay single” until you’re into your 30s mantra my generation is a part of. It’s not lack of variety, but an excess of variety, options, and details. Each user to any unique dating site is allowed the chance to pore over literally thousands of profiles with pictures. Pictures that paint the other person in a multitude of ways. Sometimes a person’s true weight is quite hard to discern with the right lighting, clothes, etc.

So my millenial generation is unique, in that it’s become almost a prerequisite to find a mate online, as meeting in a bar is “too sleazy” or short sighted. We pose in the most glamorous, young, and emboldened way we deem necessary for success – then shoot it all out for day after day critique.

I also came up with the theory concerning the famous 1-10 scale we’re quite comfortable in viewing our peers. Say a guy is a 5 or girl for that matter. By virtue of having so many choices and times to pore over profiles, it’s almost a guarantee that their computer driven ego and sense of entitlement will allow them to search hard for let’s say an 8 or 9. Becoming frustrated, this person crassly passes by possibilities (5,6, or maybe 7’s) This guy or girl is in a trap of their own design.

The difference with our parents generation, is that choice was severely limited. It really came down to who you knew in your small community or high school. Or maybe you would go to college, then have to pick from a few hundred possible mates to marry. With a limited field of contestants, you knew that your time frame was small, and you better just be optimistic/more open-minded, rather than be single well into your late 20s.

Now obviously the parameters have greatly expanded and freedom of choice is turning everyone into a demanding consumer. So I suppose if you truly are an 8-10 and you find another 8-10, chances are good. Buf if you’re part of the 90 percentile that makes up most lookers, good luck.

 2 or 3’s may have the best chance, but again if they go for fellow 2’s or 3’s they run the risk of these people looking for someone 3-4 tiers above their rank. So if 90 percent of people have this mentality, must everyone get’s left in the dust.

It’s almost like we need the government to intrude on this scene. Like every 3 years you’re branded by a  panel in regards to your ”true power ranking”. So you’re able to post this like it was similar to your license, seemingly irrefutable.

For now we each shoot higher and it’s no surprise of how quickly we become dissapointed.

Since this is the season of Thanksgiving, I thought I would say THANKS to a group that literally changed my life: eHarmony.com.

Somewhere on my old iMac computer is one of the most important emails I have ever written in my lifetime. Put simply, I am married to Rebecca Bonilla Mangual because of an enquiry I sent to the internet dating service in late April 2003.

I had joined eHarmony the previous February, alerted by a radio ad to a 3 month, $99 sign-up special. Unimpressed with Match.com, I thought I’d give eHarmony a try. A few emails and dates later, it was going slowly, nothing truly clicking. eHarmony arranges your matches for you, filtering through your criteria of choices and dynamics to select matches that “fit” what you are looking for and have deemed significant. The process takes time, so patience is a virtue.

During those 90 days, matches come and go. You might continue to correspond with some, or decide some connections aren’t working out. Fair is fair. Matches that don’t click end up in a Closed File off to the side of your profile.

Curious one day, I opened my Closed File and came across the name of someone I’d never corresponded with - Rebecca from Huntington Beach. I clicked on Rebecca’s profile link, and up popped a picture of a beautiful woman standing in front of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, a typical tourist snapshot.

My first thought was: I don’t remember ever connecting with Rebecca. The next thought was, hey, I’d like to meet her…even if we don’t hit it off, we can certainly have a cup of coffee and talk about Paris, my favorite city.

So, I did something very bold – I wrote to eHarmony to ask whether I could re-connect with Rebecca somehow. In my email I left open the possibilities that perhaps I had closed the match, she had closed it, or that even corresponding might be taboo. No matter, I would honor their response and decision to my request. But I just felt Rebecca was worth the try.

No risk, no reward.

An hour or two later I received a very nice reponse from an eHarmony customer service rep, who explained that normally “closed” matches remained that way – closed. It was policy. But that she would – as a courtesy – send an email to Rebecca to see what she thought.

A week went by when, out-of-the-blue, I received an encouraging email from the same rep that Rebecca had emailed back to say she would like to reopen the match with me. Amazing…and wonderful. (It turned out Rebecca had closed ALL her matches because she was so busy with her career.)

About a day later, she and I had jumped through the numerous eHarmony hoops to exchange our email addresses and phone numbers. Then we spent the next 3 nights talking on the telephone before even meeting for a date. These were long, great conversations, ending with prayer each time.

The 2-3 hours talking by phone per night – before actually dating – were a bonus, for we used this time to get to know each other better. Likes, dislikes, siblings, school, family, career. It was lots of fun conversation, and made the anticipation of finally meeting even greater.

Long story short, we began dating the following week, engaged 5 months later, married the following April 2004. I took Rebecca to Paris for our honeymoon (plus a week in Italy).

Sometimes, I look back at that courageous email and think, what if? What if I hadn’t sent the email? What if eHarmony said NO. What if Rebecca didn’t want to bother with my request at all?

But all of those “what ifs” don’t really matter.

I did write the email. eHarmony did go the extra step to help (above the call of duty). And Rebecca was intrigued by this gringo guy in West L.A. that really wanted to meet her. Even if it was, initially, just to talk about travel.

The rest is history…and has led to a great, deep, romantic friendship, relationship and marriage to a beautiful, incredible woman.

Thanks eHarmony!

And thanks, Rebecca, for saying YES.

I’m currently sat on a train, en route to the parents’ house for Bird Day.

Have a happy Thanksgiving and we’ll see you back next week for more Double Blind Experiments in Dating!

- Dr. Jane

Hypothesis (prediction before the date): Well his profile looks a bit like Stalin. Or Lenin. Or this guy:

But I don’t think he’s Russian or angry. We haven’t talked too much yet, so I don’t have a lot to go on. Should be interesting!

Materials (the guy, the place, any other variables):

• Turns out he used to be in real estate, then the market tanked. So he went into something to do with marketing and demographics. But hated it. So now he’s back in commercial real estate.
• He suggested Pete’s coffee out in BFE, and I politely said KEEP DREAMING. My best friend raves about this other coffee place that has approximately zero locations anywhere near myself or my regular commutes, so I’m venturing every so slightly outside my comfort zone to go see this Subject

Procedures (omg what happened???): Can I see myself ever dating this guy? No. He’s really cute, easy to get along with (kinda scrawny), and super nice. Can I see myself becoming a business partner with this man? Absofreakinglutely!

Seriously people, this Subject is bidness-oriented like whoa. I didn’t feel like I was on a job interview, so much I was with a recruiter who felt confident that he had plenty of jobs for me, and I only had to pick the one I liked best. Which, as it were, I wish he had been, because my job pays me in compliments and miniscule amounts of attention.

We talked a lot about politics and how he had worked on a Democratic local election campaign. And we talked about trends in online media and the way marketing and demographic information can be researched and to what purpose such information can be used to drive business. We talked about the City community on a local level and the complexities of hyper-localization. I felt like I was using everything I learned in my undergrad Econ classes with this man, and it made me feel smart in a non-geeky way. Wow!

But most importantly, this was the ABSOLUTE most amazing coffee I’ve ever had. Let me tell you about this place: They don’t make lattes or mochas. No, they have phenomenal coffee. You pick which kind you want out of several buckets of freshly roasted beans, and they grind it to the finest possible grind, Turkish. Then they stick it in this little filter-station-thing. So there’s a paper filter over what looks like something out of Bill Nye’s lab, and they pour 190 degree water over it. Once all the water has seeped through, they grab the beaker-thing and pour it into a paper cup from like 3 feet in the air. Then they pour it back into the beaker from like 3 feet, and back and forth until everything’s all blended and there’s this adorable froth on top of the brew. Amazing. Only problem was, after the experiment ended, I had to walk up a fairly decent incline, and the INTENSE caffeine that I had previously drank combined with mild resistance produced a heart rate of easily 360. Seriously. I thought my cardiovascular system was going to jump out of my body and go for a jog without me.

By the end of the Experiment I was starving, having not eaten since lunch. Also, I felt a bit like the squirrel in the scene from Over the Hedge where he drinks some caffeine:

Results (the good, the bad, and the ugly): I felt totally comfortable talking to this Subject. And he gave me some really sound advice about job hunting, which I’m inclined to try. I almost wish I had a slightly more entrepreneurial attitude so he and I could start the next best Fortune 500 company. DBEID FTW?

Conclusion (overall rating): Great coffee, stimulating conversation. Pretty cute looking dude, too. Nothing at all like a somber communist from the ’50s. I give it a 7.5.

While perusing the interwebs for a picture for Friday’s post, I came across this image:

And immediately I thought to myself, “Self, what is this blog about? So I pointed good ol’ IE7 to http://50baddates.com and nearly collapsed in horror when the page finally loaded. Is it possible that someone has the exact same blog concept as me?!?!

So I read the most recent post, and immediately felt better because HOMEGIRL CAN’T WRITE FOR SHIT.* But still, the concept was the important thing to me. So I jumped to her Welcome page, and felt a twinge of panic when I saw that our blogs are, so it would seem, very similar. Yet I was thrown off by the last paragraph, which states that her dates start in Spring 2003. Is this a typo? Has this girl really been dating for six years and only has fifteen dates to show for it? Because that would just be sad.

Lo, after reading the first date, I discovered that this woman is not going on dates and writing about it. No, no. She is WHINING about dates she’s had in the past. Date number one was posted in October of 2009, but it took place sometime around when Head of State came out. A quick consult with my faithful imdb.com reports that this was, in fact, in 2003. Really? I mean, I could talk about the time that I fell asleep with a date and he woke me up at 3:15 am because he had to go to his girlfriend’s house, lest he be in trouble. Yes, we had been on a DATE, and yes we went back to his place and made out before falling asleep. That happened, and it’s entertaining (…in retrospect - I certainly wasn’t laughing at the time…). Or the time a man told me he was in love with me (and meant it!) the same day we met. Oh Midori and hot tubs! But those stories are neither here nor there. Know where they are? IN THE PAST. Where they belong. And if I dredged them up, I’d call my blog 50baddates and assume that every Experiment I conducted would be inherently awful. And guess what, Bad Date Lady: If you’re looking for love and you want to blog about it, I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts you ain’t gonna find it. I say good day, madam.

Maybe our concepts are vaguely similar. You could say that this idea’s time has come, and soon enough we may see tons of other blogs sprouting up with a similar theme to them. Just remember: those fools are just bitching about dating. I, too, am bitching about dating, but – AND THIS IS THE IMPORTANT PART – I am conducting pseudo-scientific Experiments that have structure and purpose. So while Bad Dates McGilicutty is wandering aimlessly in the blogosphere, wondering why True Love won’t just fall into her lap so she can give up her silly, poorly-written internet memoire, Dr. Jane will be locking up Subjects and becoming a veritable EXPERT in first dates and first impressions.

*Seriously folks, this girl can’t write. Below is a conversation I had in the gchats with one of my very dear friends:

Well, I avoided Mr. Pursuer for awhile.  Didn’t really reply to his emails and texts.  For whatever reason, he was unbelievably nice about it anyway.  When I did get back in touch with him and mentioned that it would be okay with me if we got together, I was careful to state, repeatedly, that I wanted to get together as friends.

We had a perfectly good time hanging out today… drinking coffee and going out for dinner, talking about work and books and such.  I was very careful to treat him as a friend and not flirt.  It wasn’t hard because I don’t see him as anything but a friend.

He is still not getting it.  He asked me to think about our friendship and the possibility of dating.  Now, maybe I should have just flat-out said no way at that point.  But I actually believe in stuff like prayer and the God’s will, and Mr. Pursuer asked me to pray about it.  So I decided to pray about it with an open mind.  I just want to give him a completely fair chance and make sure I’m not ruling out something good.

On an unrelated note, the free communication weekend went okay.  I met a couple cool guys and gave them my email, so we’ll see if that amounts to anything.

Hypothesis (prediction before the date): This guy is obviously insecure. I kind of already feel bad for him. I have every reason to believe that he will be shy and awkward because it is so obvious that he’s insecure.

Materials (the guy, the place, any other variables):

• I ascertained while on the date that he’s in management training at a bus manufacturing company. He likes football, and we like the same team.
• We’re going to a sort of divey sports restaurant that’s just off the tourist strip for some beers and maybe an appetizer.

Procedures (omg what happened???): So let’s not beat around the bush and cut straight to the chase: he was awkward. Not like I-want-to-get-up-from-the-table-and-throw-myself-into-the-ocean awkward, but there was a lot of “SOOO, what do you do?….. SOOOO, where are you from…. SOOOOOOOO, is this date over yet?”

He was twenty minutes late (perhaps this was karma for me being 30 minutes late for Experiment #9?), but I cut him a break because he did drive one and a half hours to get to the date. He said he’d figured I would have left, and he has NO idea how close he was to being correct. I mean, I wasn’t really in the mood to play nice, and it was severely chilly out, so the ONLY reason I stuck around in because I texted my roomie and asked what the appropriate time to wait was, and she said one hour. Sir, you can thank my pretty roomie for the opportunity to enjoy my company and buy me beers.

So we had Sierra Nevadas on tap (which, btw, are significantly better than Sierra Nevadas in the bottle) and some buffalo wings that were scrumptious! I haven’t found any other place in this City that serves ’em quite like that. HOWEVER, two drawbacks: First, he was eating obnoxiously slow, and I always try to match pace with my date. I mean, do you really need to take ten minutes to consume a CHICKEN WING??? Please. I can put one of those things down in 3 seconds flat. And I mean pick the bones CLEAN. Second, at one point I touched my chest and noticed I had bleu cheese sauce dripped on my collar. And he didn’t tell me! I know what you’re thinking: I didn’t tell the Bloody Mess when he smeared sanguine fluids all over his chin, so how can I get upset about this Subject not telling me about a little dipping sauce? Simple. All this Subject had to say way, “Whoops, you dripped a little sauce just there…” and if he was a smooth mover he may have even grabbed his napkin and helped me wipe it up because it wasn’t in an inappropriate place. For me to tell the Bloody Mess about his dribble, I would have to say “OMG YOU’RE BLEEDING! WTF HAPPENED TO YOUR FACE?!?” And that, ladies and gentlemen, would have been horribly awkward for the both of us.

You know, if you're judging on pictures alone, you'd probably think this was a food blog. Related: mmmm chicken wings!

I know, I know, I haven’t really talked about this guy much. And that’s because I don’t really have too much to tell about him. I can tell you he goes to bed very early because he has to be at work at 4:00am every morning. That sounds exciting! And I can tell you I’m getting tired of telling the same stories about myself over and over. Our conversations were very getting-to-know-you, by the book. No entertaining stories even! However… there was one über exciting/disappointing moment for me: He invited me to an NFL game where my FAVORITE TEAM OF ALL TIME was playing. And because I have a firm no second dates rule, I had to decline. Sad face.

Results (the good, the bad, and the ugly): Nothing about this guy interested me. Nothing. Ok, he likes my favorite team, but so do Madridillions (I can’t decide if that’s a number or a noun for someone who is from Madrid) of other people. That’s not a good enough reason to warrant a second date, even if I didn’t have a standing rule against such activities.

Conclusion (overall rating): Seriously, the wings are going to earn him an extra point on this one. I’m going back for more of those tasty little devils soon. But I would much rather have gone to this quirky little sports bar with my homegirls during Monday Night Football than with this boring, boring man. I give it a 5.

**Snark Alert**

Just received an email today from EHarmony (which I do not participate in, because they are both straight AND narrow — only allowing members who are men looking for women or women looking for men) with the following headline, “What’s the Best Way to be More Interesting?”

Whaaat?  Tell me they don’t get that question from their members, please…  Here’s the earth-shattering advice they have to offer:

“It’s true: You will boost your odds of finding a fantastic partner if you become convinced deep down that you have a lot to offer. You bring many assets and attributes to a potential relationship, and you’ll radiate that fact when you regularly remind yourself of your best qualities. To move forward with confidence, believe the best about yourself and your future.”

Really?  Is this news to anyone in the dating pool?  Actually, is this news to anyone who’s ever watched Oprah?? (Or Dr. Phil, or even America’s Next Top Model?)  WTH?  Not much of a value add to their members or prospective members, if you ask me.

But seriously, if EHarmony wanted to be really helpful, they could send some articles about how to use social media while dating.

Don't be a wallflower! Get out there and have some fun.

You know, like how to get the people that email incessantly to actually get off the dime and ask someone out; or how it’s not a real relationship if it only happens over text and IM.

Despite the immediacy and ubiquity of these methods of communication — there is no substitute for an actual phone conversation or even better, a face to face meeting.

I know it seems cool to have a text or sext pal, but really, let’s just be brave and get out there in person!

So, if you’re single, do something brave today — ask someone out for an honest to goodness date.  Most likely they’ll say yes, and even if it goes badly, you’ll have an awesome story to tell at your next cocktail party.

Oh, faithful readers, Thanksgiving so rapidly approaches! Then next thing you know it’s Christmastime and you will soon be able to find me single and fabulous, and eating an entire pumpkin pie by myself while watching Love Actually (again) and downing a bottle of Charles Shaw Chardonnay alone (again). Oh how good it is to be an independent woman in the City!

Tomorrow you can expect Experiment # 10, and next week you’ll read about #11, but the following week I’ll have no Experiments to post since I am going HOME to my wonderful parents for T-giving. That said, stay tuned because the week after Turkey Day I will have a very special theme of enticing posts for your reading pleaseure. (OMG What does Dr. Jane have planned?!? It could literally be anything!)

As always, thanks for reading, and stay tuned for exciting posts to come!

I’ll have you know that the online dating site that I have used is eharmony.  My membership is over now, and while I (obviously) didn’t find the love of my life, or even someone highly date-able, I do think it is a good way to meet people.  Despite the lack of love connection, the guys I was matched with seemed, generally, like good, decent guys who were looking for a relationship.

Well, now that my membership is over, I am constantly getting emails from eharmony to join again.  There are a couple reasons I have decided against it for now: first, because I don’t feel like shelling out the cash again.  Second, because I don’t currently live in the area where I want to settle down and so that makes it tricky to be able to date without the intention of staying around.

That said, eharmony sometimes has these “free communication” weekends, where you can communicate with your matches without buying a membership.  I have passed them up to this point because I was irritated with my previous eharmony experience, but there is one this weekend, so I think I’m going to go for it.

Because why not?  I don’t have a lot of plans this weekend and the worst I will be at the end of it is back where I started.  But maybe I will meet a great guy.  And if nothing else, I’m sure it’ll give me something to write about.

By the way, for those of you other single ladies who have always been curious about internet dating but haven’t tried it… this is your chance too.  The free communication weekend is for everyone, not just former members.  Like I said, why not?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about technology, and how it affects our love lives, probably because I’ve been immersed in a project for one of my grad classes that involves writing a book proposal for a hypothetical book about – surprise, surprise – how technology has affected our love lives.

I was working on this project over the weekend, and, in a hunt for statistics on the number of Match.com subscribers (1.4 million as of June 2009, if you’re curious), found this web site, which offers information and user reviews on over fifty dating and matchmaking web sites.  I was momentarily distracted from my homework (not that distracting me from homework is a particularly challenging task) by the sheer volume and specificity of these web sites.  Sure, you have your big, brand-name general dating sites like Match and eHarmony, but if you want to narrow down your search for a soulmate by race/ethnic background, age group, religion, even income bracket, there’s a web site for you.  There’s even a web site, PositiveSingles.com, for individuals living with STDs (because people with herpes need love too).   (Sorry.)

Anyway, this discovery stopped me in my tracks because, as I sat there reading down the list, I couldn’t help but think to myself, “This is the most ass-backwards system I’ve ever heard of.  We’re all trying to meet people and connect with others – by sitting alone in our houses, hunched over our computers, disengaged from society.  What the hell is wrong with all of us?”

I echoed those thoughts later that night during my phone conversation with Ang.  (If it seems like a lot of posts have recently come out of that Sunday night conversation, you’re absolutely right.  In fact, Ang and I talked about how what we talked about would end up in this blog.  Christ, even my life is meta now.)  Anyhoo, Ang was telling me about how, on the train back to New Jersey after her date with her new gay boyfriend, she actually struck up a live, in-person conversation with an attractive young man (who was Ecuadorian, no less).

“And everybody else on the train must have thought I was crazy, because, you know, people don’t actually talk to each other anymore, let alone talk to a stranger,” Ang said.

I had to agree with her.  “It’s so ridiculous,” I said.  “People always say if you want to meet someone, to go to a coffeeshop or a park or wherever, but you go, and everybody’s sitting there by themselves, listening to their iPods, playing on their computers or iPhones or whatever the fuck thing everybody has these days, not talking to anyone else.  It’s incredible.  We have more ways of communicating and staying in touch than ever, and we’re still completely isolated.”

It’s the irony of the whole thing which just gets under my skin, I suppose.  One has to imagine, that at some point in time, somewhere in this universe, in some coffeeshop or classroom or city park, two lonely, single strangers have sat, mere feet or maybe even inches apart from each other, yet completely unaware of the other’s presence – probably because they’re both too busy plowing through  Match.com profiles.  And that, my friends, is the definition of fucking irony.

I’m not trying to hate on the Internet in general, or dating web sites in particular.  I’m in no position to judge, having been a paying member of Match for a year; it can’t hurt to have as many irons in the fire as possible, I always say.  But it’s a slippery slope, as we all retreat further and further into the isolated, virtual world to find connections, forgetting that there is a whole great big bustling REAL world too, and that your potential soulmate may be out there – maybe even on the train seat next to you.

I have officially been on ten dates, posted twenty-one blog entries, and been approached by one up-and-coming dating service about my readership. So how do I think it’s going so far?

It’s up and down. I’m loving getting to know my City, one experiment at a time. But it’s also a lot of work talking to all these mens and conducting all these Experiments. If I go on 2-3 dates a week, and each date lasts about 2-½ hours, that’s upward of five hours right there. PLUS all the endless online messages I send. I’m getting sick of typing the same thing over and over, and in fact I’m thinking of setting up a spreadsheet that I can just copy-and-paste from. Is that awful? It could look like this:

Ok, that last one is NOT how I end things with the Subjects… but I can’t divulge all my magical methods to you people!

Some of the Subjects have been a lot of fun, and some have been pretty awful, but most have just been regular guys who are looking for love in an online date. Do I judge them for this? Nah. I still think it isn’t for me, but who am I to say that it’s wrong? I mean, My very dear friends Adrien and Toni got married after they met through a dating site.* But I can’t help but wonder about every guy I meet, why are you here? What brought you to the place where you decided the best way for you to find love is through a dating service? After all, matchmaking may be new in the Internet age, but it’s actually a tradition that goes back farther than any date I could find. It used to be the primary form of coupling in some cultures, and I expect it might still be in places where young people don’t have as much romantic freedom of expression. I digress…

When I started this project, I said I’d keep doing these Experiments until they stopped being fun, and I am not even close to there yet. I am excited to have things slow down a bit as the Holidays approach. But I look forward to sharing more of my dating escapades with you!

*That’s not exactly how they met. Toni signed up for the dating site and started dating one of Adrien’s friends. When things didn’t work out between Toni and the friend, and it was apparent Adrien and Toni had mad chemistry, he swooped in and married the girl. They’re one of my favorite couples.

Hypothesis (prediction before the date): I don’t really know too much about this Subject, but he seems nice and he’s interested in some of the things I’m most interested in: wine and football. I expect this will be a fairly amicable albeit chemistry-less date.

Materials (the guy, the place, any other variables):

• He works in the wine industry as some kind of analyst. It’s hard for me to keep them straight at this point, because there are a few guys in wine that I’m talking to, and they almost always work in distribution, marketing, or as an “analyst,” whatever that means.
• We’re going to a place my roommate recommended that has a great wine list.

Procedures (omg what happened???): When I showed up to the restaurant, he was standing outside, and told me he’d been waiting for an hour. WHAT?! I am never late by more than a minute or two. Turns out he got there half an hour early and I had thought the Experiment was scheduled for 7:30, not 7:00, so between the two of us we managed to leave him alone at the bar for an hour. Not too big of a deal though, since at 6:30 there was an hour wait and I only had to bide a few minutes with him before we were seated. Creepy moment: As I was apologizing profusely for my misunderstanding, he said “You’re a lot cuter than I expected, so you get a pass.” Now the phrase itself wasn’t creepy. It was the way he looked at me like he was undressing me with his eyes while he said it. I just got the heebee jeebees again thinking about it.

This man is your typical yup. Let’s discuss a few things about him that were classic yuppie behavior:

-         After asking me about my apartment in the City, he informed me that he has a sixty-six hundred square foot house in the suburbs, complete with a large and stocked wine cellar.

-         He told me that the night following the Experiment, he had two excellently seated tickets to a “rock” concert that comprised one flagrantly and one ambiguously gay performer, both of whom I like marginally at best. But he asked me to go with him and I had no problem saying I was busy.

-         Having worked in the wine industry and majored in something-something-wine-something in college, he had heard that Robert Mondavi was “famously accessible” (he said that), so he got a meeting with the man.

-         Best quote: “To tell you how ingrained I am in the wine industry – if this is some kind of measure that can prove it to you – I am friends with Charles Shaw on facebook.” For those of you who are unfamiliar with cheap wine, Charles Shaw is the brand sold by Trader Joe’s that is commonly referred to as Two Buck Chuck.

-         At one point I told him my dad is a bourbon guy, and he said “well he’s going to want to keep me around then.” Glad to know we’re already ready to meet each other’s parents!

I can personally assure you that my vague online social networking connection with a marginally significant player within my industry secures my credibility within said industry.

Before he was a wine major he wanted to be a sportscaster, so he knows all about sports. When we talked about football he was almost condescending in his discussion with me. Like every time I’d bring something up, he’d counter it with some crazy-obscure fact, making himself sound pretentious. But the whole night was literally football, then wine, then football, then wine, then football… you get the idea… peppered with awkward silences and creepy stares that made me feel unclean.

For dinner we had a plate of prosciutto to start, then we split this decadent pumpkin gnocchi, paired with an Italian wine that I had never had, could not pronounce, and cannot remember now. Then we finished with this chocolate lava cake that was sprinkled with salt and drizzled with olive oil. The components of this paragraph were by far my favorite part of the date.

Two fun wine stories from this Subject:

1)      When he met Robert Mondavi, he said the man looks like a mafia gangster with a polyester suit and deep raspy voice, but he’s very friendly and at the end of their private meeting he gave the Subject a bottle of some vintage reserve wine that was meant to impress me.

2)      I had heard that the way the “Two Buck Chuck” brand came about is that when Charles Shaw divorced his wife, the settlement was structured so that she got the profits form that brand, so he priced it with a very low profit margin to screw her. According to the Subject (who is friends with the man on facebook), this is not true. His version goes like this: Charles Shaw used to be a winery with a fair amount of class, and the winemaker pursued some varietal that never really caught on. Then when he divorced Lucy (I love how he refers to her by her first name like he knows her), she got the rights and sold them to Franzia of Slap-That-Bag vineyards.

Results (the good, the bad, and the ugly): He made me uncomfortable. He really did. Between the awkward stares and the patronizing conversations about wine and football – both of which he knew much more about than me – I was genuinely put off by this Subject.

Conclusion (overall rating): The food was fantastic, the wine was a new experience but not inspiring. The guy was self-obsessed and remarkably unattractive.  I’d give it a 5, with heavy emphasis on the pumpkin-cheese and chocolate-olive oil combinations.

Someone recently asked me how life was in Italy, or more specifically, how was the “married” life? And I had to reply with the only sentence I could think of; one that would sufficiently describe how I feel about “married” life (a life I never really thought I would have): “It feels like I’m bragging when I talk about it…that’s how good it is.”

And truly, that’s how good it is.

I spent 23 years of my life in a perpetual state of waiting. I was never a dater, never in the mix of singles and good looking people trying to find someone to make them feel less alone, or a hand to hold, or a person just to pass the time with for now. I was, a term my mom coined just for me and my thoughts on relationships, a “long term thinker.” I didn’t want to date somebody I wasn’t going to marry. Period. And it was true, and much to the chagrin of the part of me that just wanted to be held and kissed right now.

So I think about those times; the times when I thought he didn’t exist; the times I wondered if he would even love me if he did exist; the times when I’d given up on hoping for the romantic-comedy love story I so passionately wanted and I think, “Life…you tricky little devil you…”

Three years ago I “wasted” an afternoon taking a personality test on eHarmony for poo and chuckles and came out with everything I can remember fantasizing about in my love story; the intensity, the awkwardness, the heart-break, the undying love that held the both of us together and then brought us back together and I am speechless. I never actually though it could come true…and now that it has I feel like I’m bragging…

My story might be nothing like the love story you dream up when you’re alone in your head, and that’s okay because this is my dream come true. And every day I am surprised by it, grateful for it and endlessly in awe of it.

I’m not one for bragging, but how can I not?

Yes, I go out with guys and refer to them as Subjects. Yes, they almost always pay for the dates, which I refer to as Experiments. But truth be told, my methods and rules are just as much for the guys I date as they are for my own protection and preservation of sanity. I wrote an entire post about why I will not go on second dates with my Experimental Subjects. But something’s just happened that I would like to offer as scientific evidence that my intentions in writing this blog are (mostly) honorable.

I love football. A lot. I have a favorite team in the NFL, and I have a team that I absolutely hate with the kind of passion that is generally reserved by most psychopathic homicidal maniacs. I’m currently communicating with a potential Subject who has season tickets for the team I loathe but – let’s be honest – free tickets to a professional football game are way outside mu budget, and I’ll take it so long as I can root for the other team. This potential Subject wants to take me to a gaaammmmeeeee!!! And I wanna gooooo!!!! But here’s my dilemma: I have a very dear friend in town this weekend, and the weekend following is Thanksgiving. As such, I wouldn’t be able to go with him until they play at home again, which is weeks from now. So no, I will not lead him on for weeks in hopes that I get a little pigskin time out of it.

I realize that the very premise of this blog is to take advantage of guys, and I concede there is a certain level of  moral ambiguity required on my behalf to be able to do this, but in my defense I only go out with them once for the purpose of sharing my stories. There are girls who do the same thing, only theylead men on at great lengths while emptying their wallets and souls. I’m exchanging a few hours of my charming wit and playful banter for some delicious calories, then I move along without breaking anyone’s heart or bank account.

So no NFL games or Tiffany bracelets for me, thank you. I’ll stick with my Amstel draft and dignity.

NTKOG #61: The kind of girl who — you all knew this one was coming — meets someone through an online dating service.

I am: pretty happy being single, and, that aside, difficult for guys to favorably impress at the best of times.

I am not: terribly lucky when it comes to meeting guys on purpose. The only formative and positive relationships of my life have come during times when I was specifically not looking for anyone.

The Scene: OkCupid. I’ve heard great things about sites like eHarmony and Match.com, but at the end of the day, OkCupid is funny, it attracts a younger demographic, and — big point in its favor — it’s free. When I first made my profile, I was totally thrilled: not thousands, sure, but quite a few guys messaged me. Some of them wrote really clever and charming things! And I wrote them back equally clever and charming things! And then … they kept messaging?

After about a week on OkCupid, I realized online dating is way too much work for this girl. It was like having a keychain full of Tamagotchis: cute on the ride home from the store, but then they keep friggin’ wanting you to pay attention to them. I was bored yet flustered and about ready to call it a day, when I got a message from a guy who fulfilled, on paper, every single absurdly specific requirement I have for a man:

Over six feet fall. Culturally Jewish. Well-read. Into wordplay. A PHYSICIST.

I mean, holy shit, right? It’s like someone went through my bizarrely detailed personal want ad and checked every box. I was giddy for days. We messaged back and forth a bit, then started chatting on AIM, and soon we’d set up a date at (sigh!) the Museum of Science.

The day of the date, however, I was hit hard with my standard pre-event ennui. Still, I put on a decent outfit — four-inch heels, no less — and got on the T. Then somewhere along the way, it occurred to me: I haven’t had a first date with anyone since I was 18 years old. I’m … I’m not good at dating. A quick peek into my bag confirmed this. Inside, I was carrying two copies of Oprah Magazine, a blonde wig (explanatory post later), and a circa 1965 single-girl cookbook with the subtitle: “Dazzling Bachelor-Bait Recipes!” Good thing I wasn’t taking in a set of knives to get sharpened, or else I’d probably end up on a national registry somewhere.

When I got to the venerable museum (half an hour late — I hate the green line) and the guy and I met, my terrible-at-dating streak continued. He seemed very nice and we both pretty enthusedly went through the exhibits. But my first-date patter was Lifetime Movie bad. I mean, I kind of came off as a crazy person? Some truly stellar things I revealed within the first hour that I am commemorating here only as advice to you lovely people not to ever use them as first-date ice-breakers:

• I have a thing about people. I don’t like to stand near them, in case they accidentally touch me. (Deals with the first-date kiss dilemma, anyway.)
• I learned to read as a kid by going through my father’s joke books. I know the punchline of every joke ever and I will stop you if I’ve heard it.
• Upon looking at an exhibit of vehicle engines: “I like looking at machines because they animate without any sort of governing magic. So they’re kind of like humans, but at the same time really sort of underscore the patent weirdness of the human experience. Our, y’know, awareness of. Said experience.”
• When I’m trying to do something that you can’t do as well if you’re concentrating on it, I mentally repeat the US presidents in chronological order repeatedly until I am done.
• I’m intensely afraid of fish. And thank god he didn’t want to see the butterfly exhibit so we didn’t have to broach that one as well.

Um, I’ll take “Shit That Makes You Sound Totally Crazy” for $1000, Alex. This would have been much more normal if I had been nervously word-vomming or totally flustered, but I really wasn’t. I was totally confident. I just — I guess I feel like I was trying to throw the fight for some reason. Like, frontloading this hurricane of neuroses to push him away.

Anyway, he wasn’t totally scared away, weirdly. After going through the exhibits, we hung out and chatted for about an hour, and the conversation was nice. He asked if there was anything about him I wasn’t expecting, based on his profile, and I said I thought six feet was a bit taller, then instead of asking him back, I just told him: “I talk more than you thought I would and I’m crazier, right?” To which he replied: “You talk about as much as I thought you would. About different things, though.”

Near the end of the date, I was checking my watch to see if I would make it to a Flip Your Wig pub crawl on time, then told him, “Look, let’s make this an event for the first-date hall of fame — do you mind?” So he held my coat while I went into the ladies’ room and reemerged with a headful of shiny-synthetic cascading blonde curls, then waved goodbye from the foyer (NO TOUCHING!) and dashed out into the rain.

I’m memorable, at least.

The Verdict: Online dating? I take away everything I’ve ever said about it. It seems like a perfectly safe, perfectly pleasant way to meet people whom you already know you have something in common with. As with all dating, just because you have a lot in common with someone obviously doesn’t mean there will be a love connection, but I guess it at least improves your odds. I would online date again. But I wouldn’t do it soon.

I spent yesterday, the day after the date, plunged in a weird quagmire of semi-depression, and not all of it can be blamed on the weirdly muggly coldness eating Boston right now. I realized I was completely terrible on the date because — this is probably a big surprise only to me — I’m not ready to start dating yet. I know I’m only three months out of a very happy four-year relationship, but I thought I was totally healed. I was weirdly, amazingly, inhumanly fine during the break-up. The Ex and I knew we were going to break up for the last six months we lived together, but things never got weird, we stayed in love, and I didn’t cry. Not even once. Not even when I was alone or on the phone with my mother or listening to Postal Service. I was eerily happy the whole time. The only tears I shed throughout the whole demise of my four-year relationship were after dropping him off at the airport on our very last night. Then I took my heartache and put it in a box and forgot about it.

And now, of course, it occurs to me that said box was shipped with the rest of my junk to Boston and very probably it would be in my best interest to unpack it. Not that the break-up itself was so very tempestuous or difficult, but it wasn’t nothing. My zero-tolerance policy for personal weakness (just my own; I’m okay with yours) might be a bit overbearing.

It’s not the break-up, or not just and concretely the break-up. I’m fine with The Ex and I going our separate ways, and I’m happy to be on my own. But when I think about it, I spent four years falling, every day, more in love with the same wonderful man. And he was just one (one very wonderful!) in a series. There has not been a single goddamn minute of my life the past ten years, maybe more, when I have not been or thought I was in love with someone. My adult life has been a sustained hysteria of want. And right now, what I want is not to want anything that requires anybody else.

Which … is a pretty heavy reaction to a single pretty-okay date. So maybe physicist would be right to assume I’m a total crazy person? (Also, ladies who have online dated, what is the protocol for telling someone you’re probably not in a good place for a second date? Do you have to facebook defriend? Why has the internet made etiquette so hard?! Share your thoughts, please!)

Now you too can start your own scam of a dating site just like the pros!

The computers will do most of the work for you! All you got to do is occasionally check  that people are uploading clean photos and profile text. The computer will randomly select matches based on profile preferences and send out emails to make other members think a real person is actually interested! You’ll be supplied with a database of sample profiles and real photos of male, female and even some androgenous models ranging in looks from supermodel to butt-ugly to accommodate a full range of members (suckers). Of course contact with real profiles is supported as well.  Read on…

Combine the most effective techniques from the pros!

Force subscription forms in their face to where members cannot get around them (chemistry) and make  unsubscribing from spam mail or account canceling impossible through the website (yahoo, at least in the past). Even make customers think that the computers are sure to find a match based on numerous personality disorders (dynamics?) because that’s what the Doctor ordered (eharmony)!

You’re in control!

If you don’t want specific members sullying up your web pages because they are too fat, short, old, ugly, stupid or otherwise undesirable, just delete their account or deny their application (eharmony) and tell them you’re having technical difficulties. You can keep your members match results plentiful by not being upfront about (hiding) last activity timestamps in profiles so you can include inactive members from years past in search results! (Please watch obituaries and proceed with caution).

Keep the cash a-flowin’!!

Of course, keep desirable (paying) members coming back with faux member, computer generated emails when their real matches lose interest.  Sure, your members may quit eventually but not until after they’ve forked over a weeks paycheck for a multi-month subscription, auto-renewing with no end in site and there are plenty of suckers to go-round for that because it’s a continuous cycle of out with the old, in with the new my friends!

Awww, are they phoning in for support?

Put them on hold for 15 minutes then hang up, everyone knows that! If they call back, do it again. For a little extra, you can subscribe to a dead-end looping answering machine service or outsource calls to frustrating, non-English speaking operators.

Best of all, who is going to audit dating site practices? The government is interested in the Bernie Madoffs and not the Dr. Warrens of the economy! You can do this for years to come!

Why spend $30 or more month on a dating website when you can have your own for less? Act now!

(This is not a real opinion or advertisement but a parody of an advertisement to offer some semi-factual levity for readers.)

Happy Friday everyone!

- First, how excited are you that I managed to post THREE experiments in one week, two of which were back-to-back?! Well, whatever, because I’M really excited that I pulled that off.

- I’m starting to really get into this blind dating thing. It turns out there are tons of people out there who have opinions and advice about match making and blind dating. My aim in sharing my experiences with you people is to let you form your own conclusions from my incredibly biased accounts of what happens on each blind date. Why is that? you may ask. And the answer is that I am honestly incapable of drawing any conclusions of my own. I don’t know what the greater meaning to my research could possibly be, or if there even is one. All I know is that I am having a lot of fun meeting new people and going new places. If you can extract some all-compassing truth or wisdom from that, then you are likely much smarter than me.

- That said, I’ve been having some internal struggle and external shit-taking from friends and family about Subject #8. I am resolute in my decision regarding my no second dates rule, but I’m curious: what do you, my readers, think about my policy? Submit the poll, and feel free to leave any comments! Your feedback is much appreciated.

As awlays, thanks for reading and have a fantastic weekend! See you back here next week for some more Double Blind Experiments in Dating!

Hypothesis (prediction before the date): I think I’m going to like this Subject. We haven’t had really in-depth conversations, but I can tell we are a lot alike for some reason. We’ll see if I’m right…

Materials (the guy, the place, any other variables):

• He’s a graphic designer who moved to the City a few months ago from Cleveland. When I first started communicating with this Subject, I really liked him. He’s been in Seattle for the past two weeks on business, so this is our first chance to get together for the first time. I know already that he will look very little like his picture, because his main picture looks so unlike the rest of the pictures he’s posted – namely that he’s a lot thinner in his main photo than in the rest of the gallery. That said, he’s still pretty cute, and I’ve typically gone for burlier guys over the scrawny anyway.
• He was having difficulty making a decision about where we should meet up, so I gave him two options: go to the excessively touristy spot in town and get the signature dish while enjoying the sights, or go to the restaurant in town that is owned by a former Top Chef contestant. He chose the latter.

Procedures (omg what happened???): I’m struggling to know where to start with describing this Experiment, so I guess I’ll start two nights before.

I had an aggressive two days prior with all my single ladies. We went out really big two nights in a row, and by the time dinner rolled around with this Subject the following day, I wanted to just crawl into bed with some Gatorade and sleep for a solid ten hours. Had it been anyone else, I may have rescheduled. But as I said, I was actually really looking forward to meeting him. So I put on my pretty face and my plastic smile and headed out to dinner, ready to fake polite conversation.

When I got to the restaurant, he was in a very similar state! He had been drinking beer all day with one of his friends, then took a nap and showered and came out to meet me. So yeah, we were both out of sorts, but I almost think that made it easier for both of us. This dynamic produces several long silences, but I didn’t feel like they were awkward, or that the conversation that broke said silence was forced.

As we looked over the menu, it seemed he was refusing to make a decision. I made a joke about him being indecisive, and he told me that the message I had sent him that poked at him for being indecisive was so spot on, and he couldn’t believe I already pinned him down through a few casual online messages. *Magic Moment!* Then it got real…

He looked at me and said, “Ok, so here’s the thing…” And I immediately start freaking out internally. He could literally say ANYTHING after those words! The conversation we had had directly before talking about being indecisive was our reasons for joining IWantToGetMarriedSoBadlyICanTASTEIt.com – a conversation I have never had with any of the Subjects. So my mind came up with several possibilities in the infinitely-long three seconds the he took to pause before continuing:

The next words out of his mouth were “I used to be engaged…” AND THEN THE G.D. WAITER WALKED UP AND ASKED FOR OUR ORDER!!! So now my mind is racing EVEN MORE!!!

Ninety minutes, three small heart attacks and a possible aneurysm later, the waiter left to retrieve some seared tuna empanadas, and the Subject continued his point. Apparently his ex-fiancé was incredibly indecisive, to the point that he felt like she had no participation in the relationship. As a consequence, he doesn’t like making decisions. At that point, I looked him square in the eye and said “It’s just dinner, [Subject]. It’s ok. It’s not a big deal.” And I think we both felt a spark. GAH!

In talking to him, I realized he has followed a very similar path as my roommate: always been in a long-term relationship, got engaged, broke it off, moved to this City immediately after. It was uncanny how they had lived in similar places and had family that was so similar.  But it occurred to me that he is VERY recently single after the broken engagement, and having talked with my roomie about this, I feel there is no possible way he’s done healing from that, and he’s looking for his next girlfriend because he’s incapable of being alone.

Results (the good, the bad, and the ugly): I was genuinely conflicted about this Subject after I left the Experiment. At the end of the day, the reasons I’ve decided to stick with my no second dates rule are many: First, I’m not looking to take advantage of this guy. Second, it is so apparent to me that he’s still recovering from the termination of his engagement, and not only do I want to avoid adding to his romantic discomfort, but also on a very selfish level, I don’t want that kind of baggage either. I don’t think this Subject is very happy, what with breaking off his engagement, moving to a new City where he doesn’t know many people, living alone, and traveling a lot with work. And I’m not the girl you can nab to replace what you’ve built up with someone else – I’m the girl you start from scratch with.

Did I mention he is by far the best looking Subject I’ve gone out with? Oh, he is. Totally my type.

Conclusion (overall rating): I give this Experiment an 8 because in another place and another time I could actually see myself dating this Subject long-term. As I write this, there is a new message from him in my inbox, and I had to refuse to read it until I wrote up this Lab. My final conclusion: ladies, this Experiment proved to me that it is possible to find someone online whom you can truly hit it off with, so long as you are open to doing so and you don’t have ulterior motives for meeting said person (like writing a blog about blind dating).

Hypothesis (prediction before the date): This is actually one of the first men I started talking to when I first signed up for MyLifeIsOverIfIDon’tGetMarriedNextYear.com, but he’s had friends in town so we’ve been asking each other random post-apocalyptic hypotheticals for the past two weeks leading up to the big first meet. I see this guy being a big geek. I expect he loves authors like Terry Pratchett, but I also think he’ll be kind of quiet and maybe reserved.

Materials (the guy, the place, any other variables):

• It’s interesting, because this Subject already reminds me a lot of one of my favorite cousins. During our correspondence he mentioned that he really doesn’t follow sports, and do I see this as being an issue in getting to know each other. Aww how cute! And if we’re telling truth, yes it is. But I assured him that I don’t need to have 100% in common with everyone I meet in order to like them. In reality, I do need any guy I date to love the pigskin, even if it’s the team I like the least detest the most.
• We are going to a bar that is right down the street from where I live to enjoy a few beers together before I split off to meet up with all my single ladies.

Procedures (omg what happened???): Huge shock: I arrived to the bar and instantly started to pretend to text someone, and nearly fell over when he walked up to me and touched my arm, because he looked ABSOLUTELY NOTHING like his profile picture. I’ve ranted about this before, but this Subject takes the cake for choosing a picture that doesn’t even remotely resemble his likeness.

Oh, we talked about the Large Hadron Collider. Of course we did. How could we not? I mean, we’d exhausted robotics small talk and techniques for building biomedical equipment without even the most rudimentary CAD program. So really once we moved past geostationary satellites, DARPA and CERN, the only thing left to talk about was the Large Hadron Collider.

You are so cute! I want to take you home with me and ask you trivia quesitons when Jeopardy! is on...

Appearance aside, this man truly impressed me. He and his dad are building a house together down in a small coastal town south of the City. He lives in the City, in the house he grew up in with his sister, but they never really speak because the residence has been split into a duplex. He works for a pretty big and fancy-schmancy lab, building biomedical equipment for their experiments. He likes beer, which surprised me, because he had trouble making eye contact with the pretty girl across the table from him, even though she was trying so hard to relate to everything he was saying. Did you hear me?!? He couldn’t even look me in the eye for most of the date because he is so geeky-shy.

Results (the good, the bad, and the ugly): Yes, I was right – he is a big nerd. I mean, he’s obviously a smart guy, and I had no trouble relating to him because I am very in touch with my inner geek. That said, this was the first time I felt a twinge of guilt (guilt? Pity. Pity? Indigestion? Possibly indegestion.) because I had a realization about this adorable and slightly dweeby man: I can relate to him on so many levels; but I’ll never be attracted to him because he can barely relate to me. I can talk about computers and gadgets and sci-fi all day, but he’s never taken a keg stand or asked someone their name after kissing them square on the mouth (not that I’ve ever done that… I just tend to be attracted to the kind of guys who have). He’s not a social person, he doesn’t have a big personality to match my big personality, and he knows nothing about celebrity gossip.

Conclusion (overall rating): He’s like the kid in your junior high class who would be cute if he would grow a little confidence, but who would let you copy his answers while you did your homework in class together because he’s just so nice, and that made you think he was adorable, but you’d never date him because he’s really just too awkward. But the bar had a bunch of home brew beer that was good (as long it wasn’t IPA), and I really enjoyed not being the biggest nerd in the room for an hour and a half. He gets a 6.5 because beer and geeks are both high on my list of likes.