Sure, you can expect the interesting pick-up lines and perhaps a threesome invite or two; you can probably even foresee dick pictures on a few special profiles – which I had the pleasure of stumbling into. Those are the kind of obvious bad sides of online dating. But what you can’t ever predict is the ugly underside of the internet; the really good, juicy stories you collect that usually catch you off guard. This is the ugly part of my social experiment; the stories that don’t necessarily make me laugh but make me cringe, and sometimes knocked me down. But don’t worry, I always picked myself up with confidence when I saw how ugly he was and how many messages I had. Hashtag humble brag – that’s still a thing, right?
The first rule of trying to hit on a girl is simple: insults don’t make friends. It’s generally not a good idea to insult a girl about one of her interests using words that are probably too big for you, especially when she’s smart enough to know that you are calling her stupid. Take ‘smoothoperator’ for example – yes that was his real username, and yes, his face was just as awful. FYI, this is not a good way to start a conversation with someone who lists football as one of their interests: and I quote, “modern professional sports is just a hyper-glamourized form of tribalism that preys on the unenlightened mind of the average layman, for massive private financial gain. Sorry L Steve.” First of all, I know glamorized is spelt wrong but I was quoting, so I didn’t want to change his spelling mistake while he called me stupid – I bolded the part where he did that. Thanks, Steve, I’m sure you’ve had many girls respond to your charming messages and attractive profile. I appreciate that you took the time to apologize for insulting me. Also, you can take your opinions and stick them up your ass, because I’m guessing that’s usually where you talk out of anyway.
Giving POF the benefit of the doubt, maybe you can expect to be insulted once or twice on your virtual travels through the internet dating scene. What I really didn’t expect? A job offer; two, actually. Don’t get too excited, it’s not as great as it sounds. The first time was when ‘generous guy’ asked me to be in a spoiling type friendship. What’s that, you ask? Well he was thinking I could date him and in return he would buy me gifts or take me shopping – or give me money. My first sugar daddy, how romantic. The second guy was a little more to the point. He was a busy guy running his own business and such, and was looking for someone to spend about four hours a week with him – yes, he was that specific. The best part? He was willing to give me $1500 cash to do so; as he put it, to go out for “dinner, drinks, and fun”. Unfortunately, I’m not actually an escort, but I did appreciate the offer. For four hours a week, that could put me through school.
My next story you can probably always assume might happen to someone trying out online dating, but you never actually think you would be one of the girls who falls for it. The ugliest part was that I almost met the catfish I was talking to. For those of you who don’t know, the catfish I’m talking about is not the bottom feeding fish you sometimes catch off a dock. What I’m talking about refers to the bottom feeding people of the internet who pretend to be someone they’re not or give you a very misleading picture of themselves and who they are. For example, when you think you’re talking to a twenty-three year old cute guy who admittedly seems a bit too eager for a relationship sends you a more current picture of himself, he looks maybe thirty-three, and not at all like the cute guy you thought he was. And then you realize why he wants a relationship so badly – because he’s old – and all those little red flags become giant red sirens. Like the wedding he kept inviting me too when we hadn’t even met, the mentioning of us living together and him jokingly saying “marry me”. And of course I thought, being a commitment-phobe and an avid over thinker, that I was looking too much into these little red flags and that it was a good thing he wanted a relationship. Nope, he wanted a marriage because he’s running out of time.
And that’s the uncomfortable, ugly part of this adventure. Luckily, every time one of these creeps knocked me down, I kept on going. For the blog, for the stories, for the never-ending pursuit of comedy, I kept on going. So don’t feel bad for me, this was self-inflicted. I can laugh at myself and these stories now, and so can you.
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