chapter one – the plan
In a nutshell: use Friendster to set up dates with ten different women, court them all in earnest, and blog about the process in gory detail.
happy fun game!
Inevitably, about once a month, the mother of any young single guy living in New York asks that her son, as a favor to someone the son doesn’t even really know, meet the unknown person’s daughter for drinks because the girl is moving to New York and doesn’t know anyone there and not that you would end up dating her necessarily but maybe somebody you knew might be interested…
Based upon such ongoing tradition, my friend and colleague Yoav has invented an immensely exciting new game which I will herewith christen “offensive stereotypes and libelous assumptions.”
The basics:
1. Each player puts ten bucks into the pot.
2. All players are seeded with the same basic information about the girl. In the case of the current game:
______ is a mid-twenties Jewish girl living in Chicago. She studied econ at UMIch and currently works in hospital administration. Her mother is heavily involved with Holocaust education.”
3. Based upon this short bio, the players come up collectively with a list of thirty or fourty relevant questions about the girl, then each separately (and based upon their keen instincts and deductive intellects) try to estimate an accurate as possible answer to each question. In this case, questions include (along with, for illustrative purposes, Yoav’s educated estimates):
- Height? 5’3″
- Eye Color? Brown
- Facial Features? Pale, big nose
- Body Type? Zaftig
- Favorite Music? Coldplay, John Mayer
- Sorority? Yes
- Style? Failed overly conservative attempt at NYC hipster
- Corrective Vision? Contacts
- Designer Labels? Yes, but doesn’t flaunt them
- Sports? Soccer until fifth grade
- Degree of Jappiness? 6.5
- On Jdate? Yes, but without a picture
- Tiffanys? Plenty
- Pointy shoes? Not since last year
- Bat Mitzva theme? Luau
- Cool? Edgy? Nope. Nope.
- Plans for future? Nonprofit work “or something artistic”
- etc., etc.
4. When the girl arrives in New York, take her out for drinks, get her absolutely plastered, and have her answer each of the questions herself.
5. Score one point for the player with closest answer on each question.
6. Winner takes all.
7. Losers face eternity of damnation and hellfire for having been wildly amused by this sort of thing, and for being heartless bastards in general. Actually, winner does too.
correspondence
In response to yesterday’s entry, I received:
1. 27 emails from people volunteering to aid in constructing (or otherwise supporting the idea of) the envisioned blog-based online dating site.
2. An email from Sarah Brown herself:
Darling Joshua Newman, I am terribly flattered. And to set the record straight, I am 25, single, and my mother would be so upset to hear that you thought I was hideously ugly. I’m also very friendly and articulate, and my hair almost always smells like wildflowers.
You are adorable.
See you at the wedding.
Best,
Sarah Brown
3. An email from Helen Jane:
james is kind of peeved that we’re dishing out this kind of money to simply give the two of you a chance to make out, but i say,
“Anything to serve our Master, the Internet. Anything.”
plus, i get to wear a pretty dress!
yours in the Internet,
hj.
Between these emails and further perusal of the Que Sera Sera archives, I am fairly sure I now have no choice but to propose by Instant Messenger and make this a double wedding.
soul(mate) searching
About two months back, I stumbled across Que Sera Sera, a weblog hosted by one Sarah Brown. As it was better than most, I bookmarked the site, heading back the following week. And then again at the end of the next week. And again two days later. After two or three weeks, I was visiting daily, and had undeniably developed a weblog crush.
Which is why I was particularly shocked to discover that Ms. Brown had been (as I) invited to the upcoming wedding of (I Love Your Work on-set blogger) Helen Jane Yeager. Sure, there’s a good chance Sarah won’t be at the wedding at all, as she (so far as I can tell, at least) lives in Oklahoma. And even if she is, the odds are probably in favor of her being involved with someone, or middle aged, or hideously ugly. If not all three. But, still, I was oddly thrilled.
Which led me to an excellent, groundbreaking idea. Why not build an online dating site around weblogs? After all, weblogs and dating sites are the two fastest growing segments of the web. Here’s why it works: a dating site is really just a simple database (searchable by gender, age and location) that pops out paired pictures and profiles meeting the search criteria. Why not swap in a weblog link for the profile, I reasoned? As doubtless informative as those profiles are (Oh, you enjoy fine dining and long walks on the beach too? We have so much in common!), I’m certain spending a bit of time diving around a prospective paramour’s archives would be infinitely, infinitely more so.
If my always meager coding skills hadn’t further atrophied through years of disuse (the real reason I have to keep starting companies rather than just getting a job – I have no actual skills), I’d buckle down and bang the site out myself. Since I can’t, I’m heading over to post an ad on Craig’s List in the hopes of finding a programming partner in crime. This is going to be the biggest thing since Yenta.
transitioning
Despite yesterday’s claim of a return to my previous, feral lifestyle, I’m apparently still not quite back to my old self, having earlier this evening declined an invitation to the home of a rather attractive young blonde with whom I was at an earlier point in my life romantically entangled. Cue British accented Discovery Channel voice over: “After months of domestication, the recently re-released male seems to have somewhat lost the knack for his species’ elaborate courtship ritual…”
re-released
After several days of intense yet amicable discussion, I am now officially returned to the world of caddish bachelorhood. My long-time readers, distraught by the recent lack of dating exploits, may now rejoice in the mess I’m likely to make (and chronicle) in the next few months.
irresistible
In the past three days, I’ve twice been asked out by girls I’d just met. Perhaps I’ll stick with the beard after all.
paging doctor phil
Any hints on how to make a long-distance relationship work between two people too busy to think, much less regularly see (and, often, even talk to) each other?
cupid’s arrow, redux
As any of my friends would attest, normally, I am the very dictionary definition of commitment-phobia. So, it is exceedingly indicative of the strength of my previously mentioned crush that I am beginning to see actual long-term potential.
In fact, I suspect she is too, as between standard conversation and flirtation, she has been slipping in relationship logistics questions: What time do you like to go to sleep and wake up? or On a vacation weekend, would you rather head to the mountains or the beach?
Exceedingly promising signs, yet as neither of us appears to have the cajones to acutally make a move, we are trapped indefinitely in an ongoing relationship circling dance. Note to self: stop being such a pansy and close the deal.
cupid’s arrow
I am giddy as a schoolgirl, as I have developed, over the past month, a whopping, middle-school sort of crush.