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.

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May 20, 2003

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…”

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April 12, 2003

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.

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April 11, 2003

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.

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March 24, 2003

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?

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February 25, 2003

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.

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January 22, 2003

cupid’s arrow

I am giddy as a schoolgirl, as I have developed, over the past month, a whopping, middle-school sort of crush.

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January 19, 2003

i have this really cute friend…

In this day and age, pointing out gender-differentiated behavior is a rather dangerous thing to do – it smacks of a misogynistic, patriarchal, pro-glass ceiling perspective that any guy hoping to ever have sex again would be better off simply avoiding altogether. That being said, I simply cannot refrain from sharing at least one small guy vs. girl observation I’ve recently noted. Namely, that girls tend to believe all of their friends are more attractive and all of their enemies less attractive than is actually the case, something guys simply don’t do.

Illustratively: a hunch-backed, toothless wildebeest of a girl would inevitably be described by every one of her friends as “absolutely beautiful,” or, at very least, “really, very cute.” Conversely, a Victoria’s Secret model who had once given that group of friends a dirty look would be dismissed as “honestly, not that attractive; I mean, seriously, what do guys even see in her?” It is my sense that women aren’t actively trying to bend the truth with these statements, but rather that their attractiveness appraisals are simply more highly influenced by personality. Guys, by way of comparison, have no trouble separating personality and looks, hence the frequency of friend descriptions like “who, Joe? Yeah, he’s a good guy, but he’s pretty fuckin’ ugly.”

All of which tends to get us guys in trouble, as women are nearly always in the process of setting single guys up with their single girl friends. Extrapolating cross-gender from our “call a spade a spade” approach, we guys tend to assume that the description of the girls we’re being set up with are largely objective. And, sometimes, they are. But more frequently, we hit the bar, meet the date, and realize that the liquid fortification required to actually kiss the girl goodnight would require a rather significant proportion of the week’s salary.

All of which, I suppose, leads me to this dating advice for fellow men: if the set-up is a close friend of the matchmaker, be wary. Ask for a picture. Or, at very least, buy a flask, and reduce the cost of your necessarily excessive drinking.

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November 17, 2002

goodbye, bdb

For those of you who missed it, I spent the last two weeks as a contestant in BlindDateBlog. Now, finding myself in an increasingly serious real-life relationship, I’ve decided to bow out of the game. My official resignation:

I hate to do it. I’m still having fun. And I suspect I could have made it through this weekend’s double elimination, sticking around and causing trouble for at least one more week.

Still, I must admit that the joys of smarmy digital egotism pale in comparison to those of budding real-life romance. And after spending all of yesterday afternoon and evening with an increasingly-significant other, I’m afraid I have no choice but to go the Helen Jane route and resign myself from this game. The sting of Cupid’s arrow, the sonorous lilt of happy feminine laughter, and a damned good pair of legs all conspire against my participation.

Before I go, allow me to whole-heartedly extend my thanks to Ernie, my fellow contestants, and the peanuts and other rubbernecking onlookers – I certainly had no idea what the hell I was getting myself into when I signed up for BDB, and I can say in retrospect that the past two weeks have been a truly once-in-a-lifetime experience. I’ll be watching intently from the sidelines, heckling and raking up ill will in a way that I couldn’t possibly have while still a contestant hell bent on kissing enough ass to stay in the game.

In the meantime, wish me luck. And if any of you, contestants, peanuts or audience members, ever end up in New York City, drop me a line. The first round of drinks is on me.

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May 16, 2002

game on

In a move that brings my sanity into serious question, I’ve agreed to be one of the competitors on BlindDateBlog, a web-game involving ten girls and ten guys, one of each gender voted off each week, with the final two going on a blogged-about first date.

I have a bad, bad feeling about this one.

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May 1, 2002