Protein Shakes for Everyone!

SPORTSYAAAAA
About me and who I'm looking for: I like all sports. I like the bulls and hawks. I like the Boilermakers. I played 4 sports in high school. I don't have a prob meeting girls in bars but this could be cool too. Ariiiiiiiight!
For Fun I like to: Play sports and watch them too. Also work out. lol
Favorite Hot Spots: Chicago lol

* Please note that I have maintained SPORTSYAAAA's writing style but omitted certain details in order to protect his identity while also capturing his true essence. I also made up a new username for him.

So I guess I'll just leave him in the maybe column?

I can think of a reason this would not be a good profile picture. Why can't they?

An astounding 20%* of my potential internet suiters have posted pictures similar to this one. Guys, have you ever met a girl in a bar, found her to be attractive, then pulled out your iphone to take her on a walk down memory lane of you and your ex-girlfriend's relationship? Oh, I'm sorry I forgot to mention that some of these guys did go to the trouble of cropping the photo OR using the paint application to scribble out the girl's face. Some did not. Seriously. I'm not sure why, but scribbly faced ex girlfriend pictures send me into a giggle fest so those get a couple of points. I'm so shocked that such bright, paint application savvy men have had to turn to the internet for dating. If you're saying to yourself "well, you're the one that's trying to date these guys hehehe" (I'm saying that in a high pitched mocking tone) then I agree with you but keep it to yourself and become a follower of my blog if you haven't already :)

I have to go now because I'm pretty sure the mug shot they just showed on the five o'clock news 'favorited' me earlier today but I want to be sure before I unfairly remove him from my consideration set.

* 20% is a number I made up based on looking at a few pictures. It's both very likely and very unlikely that the number is accurate.

What's in a Wink

I'm still not sure I completely understand the 'winks' I have been receiving in response to my dating profile. I get that it's a signal of interest, but I'm not too keen on winking in my real life so I have yet to reciprocate.

Do you know anyone who winks often in their real life? I've known a few gentlemen in my life who are winkers and I must say it is certainly not for everyone. My friend David winks early and winks often. I've gotta hand it to him though, great wink. The beauty of his wink is in its' ambiguity. When you receive a wink from David you are usually left wondering if a) he desires to sleep with you or b) you are in on some secret that maybe you forgot about or c) both. Less successful winkers default to the creepy pedafile wink, the as seen on tv spokesperson wink, or the ever popular, maybe he just has dust in his eye wink. Bottom line - I don't wink. If I were to show interest in a guy I might look at him, get caught, look away, and act like I'm having so much fun with my friends and someone just said something so funny. "Ahahahaha (sitting up straight, looking thin) hahahaha, we are just such a fun group of friends". Then he would see how fun, awesome, and thin I am and pursue a lasting relationship with me. So if they could capture that in a button, maybe I would use that signal. Until then, I'm going to stick to being withholding.

I'm really struggling with properly introducing my readers to these guys who are messaging me. Since I can't post their actual pictures, I'm working on some amateur illustrations to help tell the story. Please stay tuned for those as well as an overview of my two legitimate prospects. And as always...remember, as Tupac says, keep your head up, legs closed, eyes open.

Creating My Profile: Shits about to get Real (and by real I mean sort of real)

I once re-read an email that I had sent to a client and was certain that I could not have been the author. I must have blacked out, I thought, and been possessed by some terrible, type-A, buzz word slingin', douche face. That's when I realized I had traded my soul in for a smart phone and the magical gift of fitting the words synergy, action items and strategic objectives into the same sentence. Damn you corporate America.

This afternoon I had a similar experience while on my journey in the world of internet dating. Creating my profile was easy at first. Age? Check. Body type?…slender can be interpreted broadly, so yea, check. What type of movies, food, music do you like? Check - check - check! Who are you, what do you want in life and what do you want in another person? Go on…describe yourself. Oh, you can't even describe yourself? Shit. That's not a good sign.

So how did I answer these questions? I decided to just be honest and speak from the heart. I figure if I really put myself out there free of any embellishment or sarcastic mask, I might really be able to find my one and only. Don't worry I'm joking. What did I really do? I lied. No, I'm sorry, "I presented the truth in a creative way". For example: What do you like to do in your free time?
Honest answer = I enjoy spending hours laying on my couch watching shows like The Real Housewives of Atlanta and re-runs of Gilmore Girls. I like going to the 'low fat' frozen yogurt places around my house, ordering one cup and then hesitating while ordering the second saying something like, "and I'm pretty sure he said he wanted the lime yogurt with gram crackers, yea that's it." And I love outdoorsy things as long as they include drinking.
What I actually wrote = Love being outdoors, whether it be playing volleyball at the beach, walking the dog by the lake, or just napping in the park. Also enjoy live music, eating delicious food and spending time with friends and family.

I'm not ready to share anything from the 'who are you and what do you want in life' section because it's just far too embarrassing. Re-reading it was a lot like the work email story, made me want to claw my eyes out, curl into the fetal position and have a good cry. Internet Dating Website # 1 - 1, Jbird - 0.

Since going live with my profile at 8:00 PM on Saturday night I have received approximately 22 emails, 2 VIP emails, 48 winky faces, 13 i am interested in yous and 9 instant messages. My profile has been viewed 200 times. I will spend the next day or so decoding what all of this means and selecting some top quality excerpts. Here's a teaser. This email excerpt came from a software engineer who clearly had professional headshots taken to use as his profile pictures. Note his resistance to using traditional punctuation. He instead opted for repeated use of the ellipses. Why bother with commas, periods or semicolons when you can just throw out the dot dot dot, right!?

Message from iFoHawk:
you're kinda cute..you look like a little cartoon version of Britney Spears obviously before she cut her hair off and turned into a psycho……but just to make sure….you're not crazy are you?
OK..joking aside, you look much younger than your age in your photos..are these sort of old photos... or you are just one of those baby faced people?

Stay tuned, this just keeps getting better.

Just the tip, just to see how it [internet dating] feels...

As it turns out, I was already signed up on an internet dating site. Note: We will call this site Dating Site 1 so that when my blog gets so huge and billions of people are all up on it I won't get sued or anything for all the bad things I say. I signed up as man seeking woman because a friend and I were convinced that our other friend was lying about how she met the dudes she was dating. Yeah I know that was so crazy / mean / awesome of us. Anyways, our investigation came to a halt after we realized just how many single 24 year old online daters there were in the DC area. So since I was already signed up, Dating Site 1 is where I decided to start. I signed up but did not create a profile - not quite ready to commit yet. So, this way I can just look at men's profiles and get a feel for how terrible this might be.

I must digress a bit to explain my first major take away from internet dating. The topic: Vanity license plates. An incredible medium in that they allow horrendous people to go ahead and proclaim to the general public - "Here I am! I'm one of those vanity license plate people, I'm a totally awful addition to your community! Don't you love my GR8 BMR?!". And you're thinking, "No, no, my dad/uncle/family friend is just really wealthy and puts his initials and a number on his plates." Unless this person has so many automobiles that they must be labeled or else he will...nope, no, still can't think of a justification*. But really, who doesn't love driving down the road with a friend and having a little giggle fest at the expense of KKN AZZ or IMTPLS**? What could be better you ask? Answer: internet dating usernames. Since I have just entered the world of online dating, this phenomenon is all new to me. Please enjoy a few of my favorites. I couldn't make this shit up if I tried.

pecan2cool. Are you a pecan and you're too cool? Do you just really love pecans? I'd be lying if I said I wasn't intrigued, but still.
V8foryoursoul. How bout some V8 for your dick, idiot. (I don't know why but that's the only comment that came to mind)
mrdurr. Is that supposed to read "murder"? I love going on dates with guys I meet on the internet named Murder, yea, uh huh…OR is it "Mister Durr"? That could be quite different.
mapleflavor. Not sure what this means, but I love syrup. He maybe just made my short list.
MrBoatShoes1328. What!? Soul mate! You must be so fratty mr. boat shoes. You must wear them all the time, even in the winter. Hey, you might even have a boat…but probably not. Yea I already dated you a few times in college so we're good.
brochocho. Hehehe.
heartonsleave79. How does your mind read that one? Because I maybe read that as heart ons leave. And thought he was sharing that he has trouble sustaining an erection. But he maybe also could have meant heart on sleave. As in he wears his heart on his sleeve but he can't spell sleeve? So we have dual meanings here. This guy's multi dimensional fo sho.

I'm only on page 30 of 80 so there's still going to be a lot of judging to do before I can admit defeat, sign up, and hopefully become Mrs. Durr…unless he didn't mean Mr. Durr in which case, oopsie dead daisy.

* One group is allowed to have vanity plates. Cute elderly people. This includes sweet grandmas and confused old men.
**IMTPLS - Get it??? Say it slower. They drive a convertible - topless!! Ahhh that's so clever and hilarious! Holy shit I'm going to die that is so effin clever and hilarious!!! I wish I were cool enough to drive a Chrysler Sebring convertible too! Damn!

Tomorrow I will commit to a site and create a profile. Between now and then I need to find a way to take pictures of myself doing fun and interesting things so that I seem adventurous and worldly. The farther this goes, the funnier / more concerning it will become - so please stay tuned!

So here we are...

I know what you're all thinking. "Internet dating? Really? But you're so awesome and attractive, what gives?". And you're right. I am awesome and attractive. But that doesn't change the fact that the state of my love life is, well…what's the word for no physical contact with the opposite sex for six months because I'm hung up on my possibly gay* ex-boyfriend neighbor? Yea, you get the idea.

Typically I have held (and still hold) that internet dating is for people who have exhausted all other resources and reached the peak of desperation. I haven't really exhausted any resources or energy on finding someone, mostly because I don't like exhausting things plus I'm a little lazy and judgmental. And as far as the desperation part goes…eh whatever.

So I'm going to try this and give it my best, most minimally crazy, effort. And I'm inviting you all to join on my journey to find my soul mate on the world wide web. If you know me then you know this will probably not end well and as a result you are likely very excited to read on.

* Okay so maybe I did confirm a few weeks ago that ex-boyfriend neighbor is not gay. To put my suspicions rest, I decided to ask him directly. I learned two things from this: (1) ex-boyfriend neighbor is not gay and (2) straight men with whom you've had relations do not appreciate having their hetero-ness challenged…especially while they are preparing you a delicious dinner meal.