At a bar in the West Village I saw him
standing there waiting for someone to show up. He was wearing what seemed to be
his first date casual uniform – a blue gingham dress shirt (why do men insist
on refusing to tuck in their shirts?), and jeans that had a bit too much flare.
I was sitting with friends, and noticed him the way you notice people at bars
who are by themselves.
He, short and blond, was looking intently at his phone thumbing through messages in what I assumed to be an attempt to look occupied, inconspicuous, less nervous. It wasn’t working. She, shorter and brunette, was wearing a black dress and arrived apologizing profusely for being late. I noticed that their introduction was awkward. There was neither an embrace nor a handshake indicating the lack of intimacy of close friends or people who are currently dating, while also ruling out a business drinks meet-up. This, I assumed on a Sunday night in a dimly lit bar, was an online created first date. He ordered a beer, she something with a pinkish hue. They seemed to chat amicably enough, and after one drink they were gone.
He, short and blond, was looking intently at his phone thumbing through messages in what I assumed to be an attempt to look occupied, inconspicuous, less nervous. It wasn’t working. She, shorter and brunette, was wearing a black dress and arrived apologizing profusely for being late. I noticed that their introduction was awkward. There was neither an embrace nor a handshake indicating the lack of intimacy of close friends or people who are currently dating, while also ruling out a business drinks meet-up. This, I assumed on a Sunday night in a dimly lit bar, was an online created first date. He ordered a beer, she something with a pinkish hue. They seemed to chat amicably enough, and after one drink they were gone.
Being myself a newcomer to the scene of online dating, (I’m coming up on my three week anniversary) I wondered what it was in their profiles that made them both think they might be right for each other. What was it among those strange questions and rankings of importance of religion, drug and smoking habits that felt so right that they decided to make a date? There must have been something there that made them both willing to overcome a whole array of fears in order to put on their casual first date uniform best, step outside their comfort zones, and meet a complete stranger. All this was I’m sure on top of the fact that they were both deep down hoping this person had the potential to become someone they might be with long term. I mean, isn’t that the ultimate endgame for all this dating, the prospect that at one point you won’t have to do it anymore?
I’ll be honest with you, filling out an online dating profile was probably one of the most soul sucking experiences of my life. I’m sure it didn’t help that I did it over copious amount of Aberlour, and with a crooning Ella Fitzgerald playing on vinyl in the background. I tried to take seriously questions like “what’s the most private thing you’re willing to admit” (as though that’s somehow any indicator of the kind of person I am?). It was hearing Ella’s voice that really started to make me lament for the old days, the ones when the concept of romance didn’t take place over a computer screen. This isn’t how Ella did it, or the folks who fell in love to her crooning voice on dance floors in jazz clubs back in the 50’s. Surely I too could find a better way?
But the longer I sat there listening to her, the blinking cursor flashing in the empty field before me, the more I realized that women in the 50’s had their own set of issues to deal with, and it was time I started living in the present, no matter how much at times I might happen to resent it.
It
takes a while for a somewhat old fashioned mentality like my own to come to
terms with the fact that the man I might end up with could potentially start
out as a thumbnail picture alongside a list of six things he could never live
without (most often it seems to include different iterations of beer, football,
video games, Breaking Bad, and working out). But I decided, as the A-side of
the record came to its inevitable end, to defer to the very smart person who
somewhere once uttered the mantra of people who give up everywhere - if you
can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. So I downed another stiff finger of single malt,
flipped the record over, and started to tackle how best to respond to the very daunting
(and a little bit overwhelming for an online dating profile, no?) question of:
WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR LIFE?
Are they kidding me with this stuff?
Are they kidding me with this stuff?
As Ella started in on one of my favorites,
singing, “The radio and the telephone, and the movies that we know may just be
passing fancies and in time may go - but our love is here to stay,” I wondered
if she, at the time she was so graciously belting out the words penned by Ira
Gershwin, knew that the radio and telephone eventually really would go, and
love, whether it’s here to stay or not was going to end up being sought out on
a medium she probably couldn’t even begin to conceptualize.
What am I doing with my life? Damned if I know, but I guess I have no choice but to take a crack at answering it anyway.
Back at the bar I’d forgotten all about the first daters. I left not long after them and headed for the subway. It was there, waiting at 14th street for the uptown 1 train that I saw him, blue gingham standing but three feet away from me on the platform. Of all the subway platforms in all the city. He was alone and thumbing through his phone again, only this time there was something about his gaze that made me feel like something was wrong. It was as though there was a spark that had been drained from his face since I first spotted him at the bar a little over an hour ago. And then I realized. He had just gone through what he’s probably been going through for a long time now - a series of first meetings full of potential that ultimately end with the morale shattering answer of she’s not the one for me, and back to the drawing board he goes.
On the train he sits across from me. While the whole car is either listening to iPods, or reading books or scanning the day’s copy of the Times, he’s just sitting there. He’s sitting there staring straight ahead into nothingness as though he’s reliving the date, trying to pinpoint where it went wrong, what he said, what she said, if it was his fault or hers. As we reach 42nd street I think I see despair settle into his eyes, and wonder if he’s asking himself just how much longer he’s willing to do this, to put himself out there with the results always being the same. Wasn’t it Einstein who said insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?
What am I doing with my life? Damned if I know, but I guess I have no choice but to take a crack at answering it anyway.
Back at the bar I’d forgotten all about the first daters. I left not long after them and headed for the subway. It was there, waiting at 14th street for the uptown 1 train that I saw him, blue gingham standing but three feet away from me on the platform. Of all the subway platforms in all the city. He was alone and thumbing through his phone again, only this time there was something about his gaze that made me feel like something was wrong. It was as though there was a spark that had been drained from his face since I first spotted him at the bar a little over an hour ago. And then I realized. He had just gone through what he’s probably been going through for a long time now - a series of first meetings full of potential that ultimately end with the morale shattering answer of she’s not the one for me, and back to the drawing board he goes.
On the train he sits across from me. While the whole car is either listening to iPods, or reading books or scanning the day’s copy of the Times, he’s just sitting there. He’s sitting there staring straight ahead into nothingness as though he’s reliving the date, trying to pinpoint where it went wrong, what he said, what she said, if it was his fault or hers. As we reach 42nd street I think I see despair settle into his eyes, and wonder if he’s asking himself just how much longer he’s willing to do this, to put himself out there with the results always being the same. Wasn’t it Einstein who said insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?
I fear that insanity, and there it was sitting right across from me as
I tried to avert its gaze. It’s what I wonder about now that I’m a part of this
world of trying to find love on the internet - how long do we go on for, how
long to do we try? I suppose I’m too new to the game to really ask that
question seriously, but I know it’s an option, lurking there somewhere in my
future when I might be blue gingham (I do happen to own that shirt), on the
subway heading home after one-too-many-first-dates-to-count wondering how it
ended up like this, how my love life became so difficult, a numbers game summed
up by how well I can take a picture, and how interesting the most private thing
I’m willing to admit is (and just for the record, apparently “I’ve never been
in jail,” along with any other trace amounts of sarcasm doesn’t seem to go over
too well).
But blue gingham realized a long time ago what I’m only just coming to terms with, that this era of finding love online is the one we live in now, and I’d be a fool to keep pretending otherwise. Ella is meant simply to be listened to, relegated to the past as the way things used to be, not the way things are. And since my track record of finding love offline hasn’t been very successful, perhaps it’s time to take a tip from her other songs like: Who Cares, because eventually I’ll meet Somebody from Somewhere and despite the fact that it ends up being online, maybe we’ll both just say screw it, Let’s Fall in Love.
We’re not a generation comfortable with approaching people at bars or book readings or on subway platforms or dance floors. We like to keep our ear buds in, smile briefly only to look away, to board the subway or leave the street corner wondering what could have been had we only just had the guts to say hello. So we go online. We hide behind profiles and head shots and hope for the best. And I get it. I am that person. But what I’ve also learned (and am still learning), is that it’s all about letting go of the way you thought things were supposed to be. Because supposed to be can ruin you. You can wait forever for it, and in the end the Rockies may crumble and Gibraltar may tumble so you might as well figure out a way to be happy while you have the chance.
To blue gingham I say once more unto the breach, dear friend. Online dating is a battlefield, it is a war of return on investment, a crapshoot pitting your energy, patience and expectations against less than encouraging odds.
And yet while there may be defeats lurking on the other end of every of the click of the mouse - so too might potential be. All we can do as urban warriors of our own destinies is keep fighting, keep messaging and reaching out and taking chances and putting ourselves and our hearts out there with nothing but hope and the idea that one of these days, if we’re very lucky, we just might be fortunate enough to win the war.
But blue gingham realized a long time ago what I’m only just coming to terms with, that this era of finding love online is the one we live in now, and I’d be a fool to keep pretending otherwise. Ella is meant simply to be listened to, relegated to the past as the way things used to be, not the way things are. And since my track record of finding love offline hasn’t been very successful, perhaps it’s time to take a tip from her other songs like: Who Cares, because eventually I’ll meet Somebody from Somewhere and despite the fact that it ends up being online, maybe we’ll both just say screw it, Let’s Fall in Love.
We’re not a generation comfortable with approaching people at bars or book readings or on subway platforms or dance floors. We like to keep our ear buds in, smile briefly only to look away, to board the subway or leave the street corner wondering what could have been had we only just had the guts to say hello. So we go online. We hide behind profiles and head shots and hope for the best. And I get it. I am that person. But what I’ve also learned (and am still learning), is that it’s all about letting go of the way you thought things were supposed to be. Because supposed to be can ruin you. You can wait forever for it, and in the end the Rockies may crumble and Gibraltar may tumble so you might as well figure out a way to be happy while you have the chance.
To blue gingham I say once more unto the breach, dear friend. Online dating is a battlefield, it is a war of return on investment, a crapshoot pitting your energy, patience and expectations against less than encouraging odds.
And yet while there may be defeats lurking on the other end of every of the click of the mouse - so too might potential be. All we can do as urban warriors of our own destinies is keep fighting, keep messaging and reaching out and taking chances and putting ourselves and our hearts out there with nothing but hope and the idea that one of these days, if we’re very lucky, we just might be fortunate enough to win the war.
Until then, of course, expect more reports
from the field.
3 comments:
Wow Victoria - this was the first blog of yours I have read and I am blown away. I have tears in my eyes and I'm not even sure why! Whether it be due to your beautiful writing style, or to the fact that I have once been in that exact same place thinking the exact same things, I'm not sure but wow, you are a captivating writer! Looking forward to hearing more about your journey.
Rach! Thank you so much for your lovely and thoughtful comment. So glad you enjoyed the post. Certainly more to come!
If it makes you feel better, I have a friend who has a lot of online dating experience and certainly has had his share of disappointing first dates, and he says it actually feels better to get to a place where you are OK with going out on a date with someone and having it not work out. Essentially, the more you do it, the less each mis-step or mis-match seems to matter, if that makes any sense.
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