I’ve never really dated that much before, but to avoid
random bursts of tears and floor-laying sessions listening to love songs, which
the breakup facilitated, I have recently decided that I’m going to get out
there and start shaking my money-maker…
I’m not really sure what currency my butt would trade in, but I’m hoping
for something amazing like gold bullion.
Today, after a solid 8 days on the website, I can say that you
do not find a lot of gold bullion on OK Cupid.
Firstly, I almost had a seizure immediately upon signing up.
I finished my profile, uploaded the picture, and was taken to the land of
epileptic love. Stuff was flashing. YOU GOT SHIVERED! shot up on my screen. I
had messages piling up in my gmail inbox. “CHUKD gave you 5 stars!” The number
counter on my profile kept shooting up. I got weird messages. My old rowing
coach gave me 5 stars. This all happened within hours of me opening my profile.
I almost had a panic attack.
The people who are looking for action don’t mess around,
either. I had multiple messages of, “Hey Handsome.” Pop up in my inbox. These
were often sent by the older gentlemen on the website, who probably just copy
paste and message EVERYONE who signs up that day.
I decided to gird my loins, however, and keep an open mind.
My strategy was to message back and forth A LOT before anything really happened
to make sure that I was not found murdered in a Boystown dumpster. This led to
some amazing interactions.
The first was this 22 year old, who I actually had no
interest in, but he was the first normal person to message me, so I was like,
“Whatevs!” We went back and forth a bit and then exchanged numbers. I don’t
really do the texting thing. Like, I’m not going to tell you every detail about
my day, or send you lewd pictures, or send smiley emoticons at random. That
ain’t my thang. I think this disappointed the 22-year old, who would send me
smileys and “Hey, Cuties,” usually after 10 pm when he was drinking on
Wednesdays…because he’s still in college. We set up a lunch meeting, which he
totally blew off.
Me: Can u still meet?
Him: Oh. This surprise work thing came up. It’s a training.
That was the last text I ever received from him. I can say
that I didn’t expect anymore because that was about the most made up thing I
can possibly imagine. Who works someplace where you can have surprise all-day
trainings? Maybe he’s in the CIA? Maybe he was waiting for me to start the
conversation back up? Maybe he did have an all-day training?
There are a lot of maybes, but the one definite is that I
didn’t care one single bit.
On to Guy 2:
Guy 2 was the BEST. Why? Because this:
So he messages me a few times back and forth. And then we
exchanged numbers. I texted him:
Hey, it’s Tedd, what’s going on?
15 mins later I get this message:
“Geu”
Uh…what? I don’t respond because Geu doesn’t get rewarded
with a response.
10 mins after the “Geu”, I get:
“Sup.”
So I respond: “Not much, just getting ready for bed.”
15 mins later he says: “Same.”
Uhhh….
The best part was that at about 2:30 in the morning, I get
this text: “Why are you so attractive?”
I think I need to remind the reader that this was about 4
days into the 8 day period. One blow off, one guy who obviously has never communicated
through text message (or possibly any medium) before.
Winning.
The text guy still messages me at 2 am on weekends. It’s
always the same. It’s always just: “Howdy.”
Yup.
The rest of the four-day period was full of more “Hey
Handsomes” and awkwardness. I found one guy who wrote complete sentences back
to me and went on a date. The results were mixed, but he was a really nice guy.
I decided to pack it in more because I just didn’t have time
for dates. The guy I went on a date with I messaged back and forth pretty often
and it took roughly 10 days for another night to open up. My hearts not really
into the rapid-fire dating thing, so I’m going to lay low the rest of the
summer. In the winter when I’m cold and lonely, I’ll think about going back to
OK.
This all was juxtaposed to my other friend who joined about
the same time I did. He went on his first date and goes, “Yeah, he was really
hot and nice. I guess he’s a consultant, so he makes lots of money. He bought
all my drinks and we set up a second date.”
It’s at this point in my day when I wonder if I’m living in
a parallel universe. Dating is easy? How does this guy get Handsome McCharming
and I get Sup Geu?
The OK experience was, of course, better than my 8 minutes
on Manhunt. Being a complete idiot, when my friend told me he had a free month
on Manhunt, I didn’t question whether it was a dating site… or a site with lots
of prevalent male genitalia hanging out and people who are more interested in
orifices than faces. After signing in once, I’d had about as much as I could
handle.
This all culminated in me telling my therapist, which led to
this interaction:
“So, how’s it going Tedd?”
“My dating life is a series of PG-rated trainwrecks.”
“That’s fine. Write about it. You could be the gay Taylor
Swift.”
…I’m going to pretend that this is a compliment.
Come Fly with Me
No – don’t. Don’t ever get on the same flight as me because
it is misery and emptiness and terriblocity. Most recently I went with my
friends to NY. The plane ticket I had was worth roughly 10 billion dollars
because I flew United and got to pay for TWO change of airfares. They were both
due to my own issues, but it still is not cheap and I hated how much cash I
basically just flushed down the drain.
I get to the terminal with my buddy and we go to check in.
Try to check in. I get bounced from the self-serve kiosk, so I get in line and
go to an attendant. She tries to check me in twice and fails. Rather than
helping me there, as I thought would be the case, she shuffles me over to another
line where I’m behind five people.
Five. That can’t take long, right? Try forty minutes.
Watching the United team take care of guests was sad for
everyone involved. I guess no one has ever been trained, so they all shuffle
between podiums asking each other questions. It didn’t matter how advanced a
person was, they still did the old shuffle-roo over to their neighbor, waited
five minutes for them to finish a task, then brought them over to their own
podium where, generally, they had to get a third person to figure things out.
These two women in front of me had two suitcases roughly the size of
elephants, and the entire hour and ten
minutes I was in the process of fixing my ticket, they were dumping out
clothes, putting back in clothes, talking to the attendant, weighing bags,
getting new tickets. When I left they were still figuring out what to do.
When I got up to the podium, I was met with the same kind of
shuffle party that the others had been treated to. My lady looks at my ticket.
Then, oh lawdy, I have never seen such typing. This lady made hunt and peck
look like rapid fire stenography. It was one – letter –at –a –time. My friend
said, “Maybe it’s a different operating system.”
I guess I shouldn’t expect the team to understand the
operating system if they still couldn’t weigh a bag without getting 14 people
to help.
So the lady types in about 5 keystrokes (read: 3 minutes of
typing) and then just does the TSK. She TSKs and then looks to the left…to the
right… Then, yep, she shuffles. She shuffles over and asks someone for help.
The guy she asks for help is busy, so she bashfully walks back to me and
doesn’t say anything. She stares at my ticket and then stares at the computer
screen like it’s going to help matters. Then she stares at my ticket again –
stares at the computer – stares at the ticket – stares at the computer – stares
– stares….
It’s like their training manual is a piece of toilet paper
with this on it:
Lots of stuff can go
wrong – figure it out as you go! In the meantime, please practice looking
between the ticket and the computer monitor and tsking and sighing, as if you
are actually doing something constructive. <3 United Airlines
Finally the other guy gets done with his thing and then
hustles over to us. I figured he was a manager, so he would know how to type at
least 15 words a minute.
Nope.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Click.
He pulls up something and finally explains to me why the
ticket I paid 892080398 bajillion dollars for is not presently getting me on an
airplane.
So he picks up the phone.
At this point I look back at my buddy, who very dramatically
mouths, “PHONE?!” To which I have to just shrug. He gets on the phone and talks
to this guy. Of course there is no urgency, even though my plane is leaving in
thirty minutes. So the guy laughs, laughs,
then all of a sudden stares, horrified at the computer screen. This lasts for
about 30 seconds before even more laughing begins.
After another solid minute of guffawing, he puts down the
phone and hands me my boarding pass.
“We completely deleted you from the system,” he says
smiling. “That was a close one!”
I barely had time to hear him as I sprinted toward security.
NY
New York was a complete blast, but one of those good times
that doesn’t really do anything for people who weren’t there.
“How was it?!”
“Fun! We…went to bars…and then…ate pizza…”
“Oh…”
Unless you’re there to see my friend, wearing a bejeweled
crown and supporting two of my female friends, while eating a slice of pizza,
though, you don’t really get the point.
The best anecdote from the whole weekend was after a night
out on the town when my friends and I went to a pizza place. I was with two
girls and they went to get pizza.
My one girlfriend went first and ordered a slice, followed
by me.
These two guys at a table hollered: “She’s cute!” Then the
other said, “Yeah, she’s got her man, though…”, meaning me.
The guys were cute, so my friend whirls around, and without
missing a beat, says, “No, he likes d—k.” She then says, “I like d—k, too.”
For some reason, no one thinks this is odd or vulgar. The
two guys at the table go, “Yeah, man. That’s cool if you like d—k. We know guys
like that, too.”
My friend proceeds to sit down, at which point another young
gentleman comes over, reaches out to grip my hand and goes, “I like d—k ,too,
man.”
Ahhh… The things that bring people together. Only in New
York!
No comments:
Post a Comment