Elwood's got a date!

So after a few false leads, I'm finally going on a date tomorrow night with someone I met on that online dating site.

A lot of people on these kind of sites all write the same stuff. From their profiles you can single out what kin dof 'group' they could belong in:
1. Those online looking for sex
2. Those online who for one reason or another believe they need to find someoen to make their life complete and will find their prince charming online
3. Those who have boyfriends but still going online for shits and giggles
4. Those who are bored
5. Those who are older and looking to start a family
6. Those who just want to have fun and see who they can meet/are too busy to meet someone at a bar

I put myself more in the last group.

You can also do the same by just looking at profile pictures:
People in group 1 mostly show pictures of their boobs ready to pop out, or a picture of them in a club drunk.
People in group 2 usually have either a blurry or hard to see picture (if they believe they are not attractive) or are dressed in their fanciest, prettiest outfit.
People in group 3 usualy have a picture with their boyfriend in it.
People in group 5 practically are in their wedding dresses already

People in group 6 (and all the groups actually) may or may not even have a profile picture. Now I did some thinking and came up witht he conclusio of why someone wouldn't put their picture up online. It's either:
a) They don't thin they are attractive and worry by showing their picture no one will talk to them
b) They don't feel the need to have someone talk to them based solely on their looks.

So, after avoiding profiles with no pictures, I started to read them as well.

I stumbled upon a very funny and interesting one. Decided to message the person and she wrote back with a picture attached. I will admit she looks pretty. After writing back and forth a couple of times, being extremely jokey in the messages, I finaly asked her for coffee/beer and she wrote me back her number. I gave her a call last night and we agreed to meet up tomorrow evening to go check out this "alternative theatre" event happening in My City. I just found out a band I know of is playing there for FREE at the exact same time I arranged to meet her so that'll be cool. I hope I'll be able to find her.

Wish me luck!

I

Date # 3 - Happy

Last Monday I met up with Happy. This marks the 4th girl I've met to go on a date since I broke up with Wendy. I have yet to have a second date with any of these people.

I'm not sure I can even call what I did really a date...

We arranged to meet for coffee. Thankfully, she picked a place right around the corner from me which was super convinient in case I needed to bail. I was a bit worried she'd be really ugly.

When Happy showed up, I was stunned. I will admit she was a bit a larger person than I'm normally attracted to, but her face was so pretty. I didn't have a hard time keeping eye contact with her.

So we sat down and chatted about stuff for a while. She seemed interested but then she asked me about what I was looking for on the dating website we found each other on. She was intrigued that I had just moved downtowna nd asked me if the reason I was on the site was to meet other people to hang out with. I slowly said "yes but...." ensuing I was also looking for something if it were to lead into it.

Then Happy started to tell me about a party her friend was having and that I would love her friends and I should go...

...Except she wouldn't be there. She had anohter arty she'd be going to insted...


I was thrown off a bit but didn't mind. I want to meet new peopel and i love randomness. However, i totally got the impression that
a) she was looking for anything
b) if she was, I"m not what she's looking for

I also havn't heard from her since except to tell me that the party was moved to a day I can't attend. I wrote a note to her saying that we should hangout some time but havn't heard from her since.

Well, it could have been worse, I guess.

Back Online

It's been exactly two weeks that I've been livingin my apartment and it's finally starting to feel a bit more like home.

I finally broke down a lot of the empty boxes that were in my room and replaced them with some furniture. I have a new desk for my new computer, as well as a bookshelf. It has yet to have some shelves with books so right now it looks like a giant coffin in my room.

The best part about my room is how all my firniture is from IKEA yet each piece is a different shade of brown...

I'm starting to get a feeling for my roomates. They seem really nice and friendly. RM1 is out of town this weekend so they apartment is pretty quiet.

I started to bike ride around the area and it's great. I even started to bump into people i know which is always a nice feeling.

Sheira has been calling me lately to hang out and do stuff. Unfortunately both times I was busy but I hope not to have a Victoria repeat. I don't understand why I keep having bad timing issues.

Meanwhile I have been in contact with someone online (let's call her Happy) and we're in the negotiating phases of when and were is a god time to eet up for coffee or a beer. So, Monday night may mark Date # 3 on my list of 10 different people to date.

I decided to go out on a limb on this one. Happy viwed my profile. I read hers and even though she had no picture, decided to give it a try. We started messaging back and forth. I get the feeling that she is a more laid back person who doesn't need to go out and get drunk to have a good time. She also seems big into foreign films and culture.

We then exchanged e-mails and phone numbers. I have yet to talk to her or meet her in person, ans as of yet I have no idea how she looks. I know most people will insist on a photo first but the last person I met online, the photos did no justice at all. So whats the point?

I feel a bit guilty though. I did a little bit of research on this person. At first i google searched and facebooked her e-mail address but no luck. I figured out it must be what she uses to meet people online and it is not her personal address.

When she gave me her phone number though, Google gave me a hit with her personal e-mail address, thus giving me her last name. I then put that in Facebook and found her. Unfortunately, it was all for nothing because I can't see anything except a tiny pic of her in ski clothes (i.e. no face visible) until i add her as a friend.

It's scary, though, the possibility of stalking someone on the net.

Update

I have a few minutes this morning to take advantage and write a quick post to update you all in whats been going on lately.


Well, the move went well. I had help by 3 friends (at different times) and it only took 2 trips to get everything to the apartment. I already unpacked all my essentials but I still have some boxes in the middle of my room, and will stay there until I get more furniture (a desk, bookshelf, etc.).

I have the most fucked up closet in the world.


The depth of the closet is about 2/3 of a regular closet so all my clothes sit in it at an angle. On top of that, there is a single shelf to put stuff on but I can't because the architect put the shelf exactly in line with the top of the doorway, leaving about a 5 inch space to put things on a 12 inch shelf!

Other than that the apartment rocks! I'm living with two roomates, which I'll call RM1 and RM2 for simplicity. RM1 is very friendly. She's about 10 years older than me but pretty cool. She'll ask me how my day was and stuff like that. We've even been chilling int he kitchen watching LOST episodes a couple of times this week so that was awesome.

I've seen RM2 for a total of 15 minutes this entire past week. She's either in her room or out. This is fine by me, but I just found out last night that she's moving out in June. She just moved in last week! Well, maybe the new roomate will be a hottie.

As for girls, I found out that Victoria (whom I havn't spoken to since my last cancellation of plans due to the fact that she never had a cell phone and she moved) was seen at a party being very touchy feeling with a guy I know. It doesn't bother me, and not that I even wanted to, but I'm sure if I played my cards right I could have ended up like that. Instead, once again, I screwed up chances with a girl who was showing me interest.

On the bright side, I hung out with Sheira this past week. We went out for coffee and just chilled for an hour. Again, not something I ever really wanted to pursue, but we're totally in the 'buddies' zone, which is fine by me. We discovered we're both huge Radiohead fans and decided to go to the show this summer. I think it'll be fun to hang out with Sheira over the summer since she's new to My City and it feels good to show people around the great city I grew up in.

As for internet dating, I've been contact 3 times by mail order brides from Russia, a 38 year old male graphic designer (?) and a girl sent me a smile on Lavalife, thus convincing me to buy credits, but turned out to be a waste since she never replied to my message.

I'm hoping to get a computer in the next week or so, so hopefully I'll be able to update more often.

Peace!

Woman = shallow!

So I've been checking out a couple of internet dating sites this past week.
I'm starting to get the feeling my little goal of meeting 10 people is a lot harder than I thought.

Initially I figured I'd e-mail/message a bunch of people online, go on a date with a whole bunch of people and after a bunch (i.e. 10) different people, I'd really have an idea of whats out there and what I want.

In theory that sounds easy but it'll only work if someone writes back to me!

I have no idea if it's my profile, my pictures or what I'm writing to these people but on one site, out of 15 people I contacted, no one wrote back.

A couple of women didn't even open the message (on this particular site it says if the message has been read, unread, read deleted and unread deleted).

One person I messaged, even though her criteria interested me, I only messaged her because I saw she lived where I want to move to and all I asked in the message was how it is to live in the area and if she has any advice.

She didn't even open it! She just deleted it, most likely based on my pictures.

I don't see whats so wrong about them, maybe their just a bit too goofy?

Currently my pictures are:
1. A close up of my head and shoulders at 3/4 view so you can see I have a goatee
2. A picture of me standing in a t-shirt holding something (you can see I"m skinny)
3. A picture of my with a goofy smile and 6 drinks in front of me
4. A picture of my holding my shirt open, revealing that I"m Spiderman (my friend made me wear that to the Spiderman 3 premiere)
5. A picture of me wearing a shirt dressed as a tree (I thought it was cute)
6. A picture of me drunk playing air guitar with a co worker

I don't have anything better and I figured some fun pictures would show my fun side. If the people I message would at least contact me they'd find out I'm not a bad guy.

I think that online dating is 99% on looks and I laugh when I message someone I don't even find that pretty but say to myself "I shouldn't single out people because of a photo" and then they dont' get back to me.

Maybe I"m going about this all wrong... I might take a break for a few days to calm down.

Classification

So I recently decided to start checking out online dating sites again.
There is this particular free one, plentyoffish.com that I've been checking out the past couple of day.

One thing I hate about online dating (and I guess dating in general) is how we have to classify our body type.

The website offers few choices:
Thin,
Athletic
Average
Slightly overweight
Big and tall/BBW

I'll admit there are a lot of large people on the website. Some put average, which I think it awful because I'm sorry, but you don't look average. Then there are those who write prefer not to say which is dumb because that automatically says you're ashamed to talk about your weight.

I truly admire those who list themselves as a few extra pounds. At least they are honest with themselves and not ashamed of how they look.


Now i"ll be honest, I am not really attracted to large women. It may have something to do with the fact that I"m such a skinny guy. However, I'm not only attracted to super skinny model types. I"ve been attracted to several people who are cuddly. Just because the person lists themselves as slightly overweight doesn't mean I won't consider messaging them if they have a pretty face and something interesting to say.

But it's crazy how I saw pictures of people from skinny to quite large all listing themselves as average! Do they mean the avergae skinney/middle/large person? What is average these days?

Progress

This past week has been pretty crazy.

One thing that was bothering me was that Wendy had her birthday party this past Saturday. I was actually at a bar around the corner from her planned party.

I went out with the intentions to not think about her and have some fun.


For the most part, no fun was had at all.

I was at a bar with Body Builder but he ended up chatting up a much older, drunken woman. I was tired of waiting around and we had planned to go to a house party together, so I convinced him I"d head there early and meet him there.

On the way to the party I bought 6 pack case of beer. I arrived at the apartment, ring the bell and no answer.

I called the person. No answer.

So I bailed early and went home at 11:30pm.

I ended up staying up with Ira until 2am looking on online dating sites for potential dates (for both of us).

Actually, I recently decided to give internet dating a shot again and spent the night before updating my "online profile". This is what I came up with:

"Hey! I'm a super outgoing, funny and all around good guy (I give my seat on the bus to little old ladies). I've always got a smile on my face and get great joy out of making others laugh. My current hobbies include playing acoustic guitar, performing improvisational comedy (think Whose Line Is It Anyway), reading all kinds of books (fantasy, biographies, fiction) and playing floor hockey. I have a secret love for dressing up and am known to go a bit overboard when Halloween comes around. I am a graphic designer and I lived in Australia for a full year. I loved traveling and wish I could do it again, sooner than later.

Just putting myself out there to meet new and interesting people. I'd like to hang out with someone who can make me laugh at all the silly things they do, introduce me to new rock bands, and just walk and talk around the city for hours. Hey, if anything were to blossom from that, then bonus."

I already got a message from someone who contacted me out of the blue. We wrote back and forth twice so far but then I realized she's living in Vermont and she hasn't wrote back since.

Also, yesterday I saw pictures of Wendy's birthday party and it actually didn't bother me at all. In fact, I feel bad saying this, but after looking at her pictures, I didn't even find her as attractive as I once did.

I guess I'm on the right track to moving on...