At this point, online dating feels like playing roulette. My odds of playing and landing right are crap. Worse yet, all the profiles I read are meshing into one. This congealed Perfect Match uses proper grammar, cooks, works out, wants children, plays an instrument, likes the country and cats. And he is a fantastic lover.
He is, as I am, as fictional as ever. I don't even have the time these days to consider penning in a potentially go-nowhere date. This is the attitude I'm working with. So with that in mind, I changed my sweet simple profile into something probably pointlessly verbose, to necessarily weed out the illiterate and the un-poetic. I have to entertain myself somehow.
Here it is, was, is for now:
"How hard it is, for even the most astute writers to here delineate their sellable selves. I cannot. I could list attributes the way I do in my resume, my bankable relationship skills, or post the picture that emblematizes my coyness. I could be stern and honest, thus seem confident, a solid pick. No matter the way I choose to display the ‘me’ such sites prompt us to show, I am still just another woman on a shelf, measuring compatibility against time expenditure, being as concise with my shopping as I scroll through faces.
It sickens me, this process. And yet it has become so common and such a logical way to better our chances that you’ll scarcely find anyone who will scoff at meeting a mate online. We all know someone that has been successful, fruitful, reaped his/her bounty. I can be a part of it, acknowledge its value, or sulk and wait for things to come to me. The self-loving word ‘pro-active’ comes to mind, and like many of us of the generation of the glorified individual, there’s no harm in making Me feel better, get stronger, swell happier. So I’m quietly a part of it, although I do not believe it is the preferred way to coalesce, only, the seemingly most effective way with the best odds at the moment.
Now off, left-brain, and onward right. Both valid, both important.
What can I do then, if I insist on waiting for magic? I can tell you what makes what I take to be my soul, stand at attention. Maybe these pieces will be lucky, will let me encounter a kindred spirit.
These moments like tendrils, moments like waves, or thickening heat penetrating skin—
The vastness of the night sky and the paradox of our singular potency versus the whole of it.
Certain melodic lines tracking over synapses just so, making that song glorious, to us. Finding someone who has also been swayed into awe by that same song.
Lovely coincidences, and the choice to view them as a small piece of divine handling of my life.
The incredibly rich taste of beans and rice after three hours of canoeing, and setting up a tent, building a fire and bundling down before sunset.
The way a cat nestles and purrs against bare skin.
The smell of the nape of the neck of a man who has made love to me, and spent the night, and wants to do so for time to come.
The irretrievable glint in the eyes of a child when in a moment of discovery.
A well-done task, done.
An honest workshop.
A mended friendship.
The pure oomph of a new idea.
Putting that new idea to work.
Swimming.
Singing, singing while making people laugh.
The lull and solace of pre-dawn.
New art supplies.
The standard list of who is me and what I do, I suppose, should follow. I: am finishing a writing degree, teaching swimming, working admin for the swim program, trying to get some time in between those things to develop some plays, a script, another opera, more art pieces, more fiction, cook decent meals, sleep standard hours and see people so that I do not develop cerebral cabin fever.
Good luck to you."
