You had me at “so, what’s up?”

I know many who say that in this world of online dating that romance, whatever that is, is apparently on its way out. We are content with reaching out to each other through computers screens and defining ourselves in profiles, as though we are simply one-sided machines quantified only by the kinds of music we listen to or television shows we watch (well, I could never love a Baywatch fan).

I was recently on the phone with a friend who was looking at her OkCupid profile and she told me that there were currently 66,741 people online. That’s a lot of people out there all sitting inside their apartments surfing through photo-shopped pictures and perfectly crafted profiles describing what people think is the best version of themselves (read: mainly lies). When my friend told me she got an instant message on the site from a gentleman with this lovely request, “want to cuddle?” it was then that I really felt I made the correct decision in getting myself off the site.

Let me explain. Getting online, creating a profile, setting up a series of dates and over drinks talking all about myself doesn’t sound like an activity I would in any way enjoy participating in. And of course I’d have to ask questions too: Where are you from? What do you do? Where do you live? How long have you been in New York? Christ I’m already bored. Of course I know for some it works. My friend from college not only met her perfectly matched husband on Match.com, she met him on her very first Match.com date (like I say, love is like hitting. the. lottery), however I can safely say it’s not for me. I’m not quite yet ready to give up on that perhaps impossible thing called meeting someone the old fashioned way – you know, face to face – a concept of which close friends of mine (I won’t name names) can’t seem to entirely come to terms with. In their attempt to right the wrong of my singlehood – and in pure horrifying romantic comedy fashion – they decided to create an OkCupid profile for me without my knowing about it. For three weeks they secretly managed the account, letting messages filter in from men all over New York who thought my friends having added “scotch” as one of my interests was enough for them to want to date me.

Upon hearing the news and getting an email from OkCupid informing me that I was apparently now deemed in the top 10 percent of the most attractive people on the site and they were now  – great believers in love that they are  – going to start sending me more attractive matches (I bet they say that to all the girls!) I was at once offended and just a little bit sad. Offended, well, for obvious reasons (my friends and I are now back on speaking terms), and a bit sad because their gesture, while I guess well-intentioned, spoke not only to the nature of how we as a society view our approach to relationships, but also to the somewhat disturbing idea that being a certain age and being unattached is in some way, somehow, a real problem.

I deactivated the account, leaving behind what I’m sure could have been great loves of my life, men who had sent compelling messages like, “I like scotch, too,” and went back to the business of thinking about love in the ways of yesteryear.

Then I received the following text message:

“Hey, I don’t really know you, except that I got your number at Brooklyn Bowl in January and I vaguely recollect talking about art…so, what’s up?”

Right. All those months ago I too have a vague recollection of talking to some guy at one o’clock in the morning at Brooklyn Bowl about, above all things, art, a topic which at the time seemed to interest him (well, I had a lot to say on the subject) enough for him to ask for my number and then promptly never call me.  

The more I thought about it the more I realized that perhaps I’ve been telling myself lies as much as the people in their OkCupid profiles (I mean do you really think I’m going to believe you’re a “young” fifty? What does that even mean anyway?). How long have I been in New York meeting men face to face, handing out my number (it must be stored in cell phones across all five boroughs!) never to have it really go anywhere? However much, much more to the point: where did I get this idea that meeting people in the flesh is the answer, or so much better than the alternative? Perhaps yesterday I should have given a chance to the guy who, from the window of his car shouted out to me as I passed him on the sidewalk carrying my laundry bag for drop-off “Hey beautiful, I’ll do your wash and fold.”

I guess it’s hope. Hope and my general unwillingness to stop believing that two people can, through circumstances greater than themselves, find each other sitting over drinks at a bar or being introduced by friends and connect (when a man and a woman see each other and like each other they ought to come together - wham! like a couple of taxis on Broadway - not sit around analyzing each other like two specimens in a bottle), creating a spark in a way that no message over a computer could ever aspire to ignite.

So I put it to you, dear readers, as I find myself at this particular crossroads of my romantic future: what would you do? Ignore the message realizing that surely this isn’t how things are supposed to go, or (!), respond and accept that perhaps the new norm is now a text message sent approximately five months after meeting someone, and come to terms with the fact that while one can hope for more (and one can always hope), perhaps these days we should know better than to be hoping for much more than “what’s up.”