Clearly, I Didn't Think This Through : The Story of One Tall Girl's Impulsive, Ill-conceived, and Borderline Irresponsible Life Decisions (9781101612255)

by Goldfarb, Anna

  “I know. That’s so weird.”

  “That girl I dated after you, she was just a rebound.”

  “How can there be a rebound? We never dated. We just hung out.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Bucky, you were never my boyfriend. That never happened.”

  “Anna!” He looked like I’d just knocked over his house with a wrecking ball. “How could you say that?”

  “We saw each other,” I clarified. “We were seeing each other, not dating.” Basically, I’d just dumped him twice.

  I finally walked away out of exasperation and went back to the table where my friends were sitting. Aislinn asked who I was talking to.

  “Oh, he’s just a guy that I was seeing.”

  “Is that why he’s looking at you like he’s going to cry?”

  “Well, we dated for a week, like, two years ago.”

  “Only a week? It must’ve been some week. He looks like he just saw the first ten minutes of Up or something.”

  Compassion kicked in. I felt sorry for the guy.

  “Fuck it. I guess you could say he’s my ex. He’s certainly campaigned hard enough for the spot.”

  CHAPTER 12

  His Picture Lied

  The whole point of the Internet is to make our lives more fun. Whoever invented online dating did not get that memo because, not to sound hyperbolic, but online dating is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. Let’s just say that if online dating were a subject in high school, I’d fail it. I’d be forced to retake the class during summer school, but I’d fail that, too. The school would then threaten to withhold my diploma until I passed the damn class. And, after my third attempt at passing it, to the dismay of my friends and loved ones, I would drop out of school and get a job at an intersection selling bottles of chilled water on hot days.

  On the whole, I’d say that my experience with online dating has ranged from being mildly unpleasant to being downright terrifying (JDate, I’m looking at you). Maybe I hate it so much because I haven’t found the right site for me. Like Goldilocks, I’ve tried almost every one out there and so far, none have been a good fit. I know it’s possible to meet a good person through one of these sites; my older sister, Sarah, found her husband online. She tries to gently nudge me to give it a shot, saying that it worked for her, but every time I hunker down and try it out, I emerge with a mild case of PTSD.

  All the guys on these sites look like pound puppies, with their little pictures and playful descriptions giving a quick snapshot of their personality. But instead of adopting my new best friend, dating online feels like interviewing a pool of wackadoos in a high-stress situation that leaves me questioning my attraction to the entire male species by the end of it.

  Truthfully, I find the entire experience anxiety-inducing. It’s worse than a dentist’s visit or a tax audit. At least when I’m getting a root canal, I don’t have to fill out an extensive application about my personal habits and partner preferences. Could you imagine telling your dentist what your biggest turnoffs are or telling Mr. Taxman what’s the best lie you’ve ever told? That’d be hell!

  Hands down, the worst part is filling out those online questionnaires. I hate coming up with witty answers about my interests. I have no patience for this part of the process. If I were an honest woman, I’d just say that I enjoy tweeting jokes during Mad Men, hanging out with my cat, Charlie, eating Mexican food, and quoting the dialogue to Reality Bites verbatim. Does any guy really wanna hear that? Or, more to the point, would any guy be attracted to that? No way.

  Instead, I’ll put something like, “I love my computer. And sleeping. But not sleeping with my computer. That’d be weird.” See? I suck at this! I’d probably have better luck meeting my soul mate if I hired someone to fill it out for me. That is a service I’d pay good American money for.

  Even if I made the most perfect profile with the cleverest, most perfect answers, it’d be all just to wander around a petting zoo filled with Kid Rock–looking hillbillies, uptight accountants, and divorced dads who can’t spell very well. It’s a significant time commitment to sort through the heap. At times, it can feel more like watching American Idol auditions than finding a suitable companion for sipping wine on a Friday night. It’s like a sea of William Hungs overtakes my computer monitor when all I’m looking for is a Clay Aiken. (Talentwise, this metaphor holds.)

  It doesn’t help matters that I’m a grammar Nazi who takes great pleasure in overanalyzing minor spelling mistakes and grammatical oversights. I’m more than happy to jump to conclusions about his competency based on them. He was clearly raised in a barn because he confused their with they’re. He can’t figure out the difference between a possessive and a contraction? What a moron! There’s nothing sexy about the process when I start bullying a guy’s dating profile.

  Occasionally, I’ll strike gold and find a guy to double-click on. I’ll scan his information like a pig unearthing truffles. Key words will pop out: Ghostbusters. Elliot Smith. Rushmore. “We could have a match here, folks!” I announce to an empty room.

  Looking over his profile, I’ll unleash a parade of exclamation points in my head: He’s educated! He’s funny! He drinks coffee! He has a job in a thriving field! Clearly, this man is my soul mate. We’re going to have cute kids and dress them in little corduroy blazers if they’re boys or cute, colorful frocks from boutique shops located in the upscale parts of town that have cafés with singer/songwriter CDs on constant rotation if they’re girls. We’ll pick cute names for them like Clementine, Ruby, or Simon.

  I will have already imagined our life together and debated the best way to announce our engagement—Facebook relationship change or a tweet?—until I hover over his height and my smile will fade faster than Shaquille O’Neal’s rapping career. At 6′3″, he’s too tall. It obviously wouldn’t work out between us. Next!

  Short guys are never honest about their height online because they assume that most women would be turned off by shorter dudes. I get that, but it makes finding my short prince that much harder. It’s a first-world problem, sure, but it’s still a problem. And no one seems to believe me when I mention in my profile that I’d prefer to date a dude between 5′5″ and 5′10″. Half of the inquiries I get are from tall guys arguing with me that I should give them a chance. I’m not interested in giving taller guys a chance; I’m interested in meeting my perfect short guy. I thought online dating was all about custom-ordering what kind of person I want to meet, not being attacked for my preferences. Frankly, I didn’t come here to get confronted about this.

  I also hate choosing a flirty screen name. I’ll wrestle with this crucial element for hours on end, but no matter what I come up with, it’ll end up sounding like a desperate, sugary soda shop concoction with an involuntary twitching problem: ClassicCokeWinks, VanillaShakeShakes, PrettyPleaseWithACherryOnTop.

  And I’m terrified about being matched up with a guy I’ve already dated in real life. With my luck, he’ll be my first match. Oh great, the one guy in the city I never wanted to see again is now posing on my computer monitor doing something rugged in his profile picture, like hiking up a mountain or leaning against a Jeep door. It makes me wanna hurl seeing him in a Patagonia jacket and cargo shorts like he’s filming a granola bar commercial.

  I wish I could fill out a comment card on his profile to warn other women about his faults: “Jeff is a great guy—that is, if you like guys who have unusually long fingernails and whose snores sound like a chain saw making an announcement over a middle school’s loudspeaker system.” At least that would be some useful information on his profile for once!

  I also can’t stand reading boring e-mails. It’s an unsettling experience to have semianonymous correspondence with people I have no interest in. I’m not here looking for unfunny pen pals, America. Of course I’ll ignore the e-mails, which will just make me feel guilty. At first it was a thrill to get the attention, but that thrill quickly faded when I realized that I was getting fifteen e
-mails a day from pale, nervous graduate students named Ben.

  And, I’m going to sound like I’m whining here, but if by chance I do find a guy I like, writing witty e-mails about myself is exhausting. Who has the time to craft several in-depth e-mails detailing my personal and professional trajectory? Composing my college essay was less of a hassle. Can’t I just say that I rule and leave it at that?

  Every few months when there’s nothing but reruns on TV, I’ll have a spark of optimism and reenlist on a dating site. My first goal is to signal my availability to the right people. It’s pretty simple:

  1. I want to meet a short guy.

  2. I want to meet the right kind of person.

  I make sure to sprinkle in cultural clues to communicate my offbeat interests to the legions of potential suitors. I’ll casually mention Apple products and my love of coffee, that’s a given. I’ll name-drop the Smiths and make an Arrested Development joke. For the bonus round, I’ll even toss in a Party Down joke for the truly countercultural. In the minefield of online dating, those bits of information are essential to weeding out the duds.

  However, it is apparent that most people on these sites lie about some crucial facts. Almost everyone tries to hide their obvious flaws, like that they are unemployed or that they still live with their parents. Even guys who declare that they are open books are lying about some aspect of their profile. It is impossible to tell the whole truth on an online dating profile. Maybe the way the picture is taken is hiding a receding hairline. Maybe he borrowed a friend’s puppy for his profile pic to appear more approachable. There has to be something in there that is less than a hundred percent honest.

  This isn’t a terrible thing because truly, it’s the mark of a sane person to fudge some facts. It’s the ones who lay it all on the table that freak me out. When he types up his favorite sexual positions along with his sexual history in sharp detail on a public dating site, it makes me want to invent a time machine so I can go back in time five minutes before I saw his profile and toss my computer out my window, sparing me the trauma of glimpsing into his bizarre sex life. It’s like watching Madonna’s “Justify My Love” video: No one needs to see it. Not now or ever.

  But what disturbs me most is that no matter how many online quizzes I take, there are still dozens of personality flaws that I cannot screen for. No online dating profile on the planet will prepare me for his chapped lips, bad breath, or terrible manners. Oh no, I don’t get to find that out until he’s sitting across the table asking to split the bill when the check comes.

  For instance, online profiles can’t screen for tumblers. You know, guys who bop around like life is one big Cirque du Soleil tryout. They’ll use any excuse to kick out a cartwheel or roll out a somersault. As soon as their feet make contact with a patch of grass they’ll bust out with a handspring or a round-off. I don’t wanna date a guy who even knows what a round-off is! Guys like that always show off their flexibility. Like, they don’t just touch their toes; they’ll throw their whole body into it and bury their noses in their legs as they caress their calves. Watching guys bend in half like Gumby on four muscle relaxers doesn’t do anything for me. I like my guys to fall head over heels for me metaphorically, not literally, so tumblers, acrobats, and gymnasts need not apply.

  Or, what if he has floppy sleeve cuffs? Online profiles can’t reliably screen for that. I’m not a fashion snob by any means, but if a guy shows up for our date with his shirt cuffs flapping in the wind like a dog’s tongue on a hot day, I would probably zip around on my heels and pretend we never met. The only guys who dress like this are flashy magicians and eccentric millionaires on vacation and—news flash—I don’t want to date either of them.

  The only exception to this floppy cuff rule is if the year is 1992, your name is Eddie Vedder, and you’re wearing a ratty flannel while you’re filming a video for a song called “Evenflow.” If that is the case, I might consider letting the open cuff rule slide. I didn’t say I would, I said I might.

  Or, what if his car smells weird? I definitely can’t screen for this by scanning his profile page. What if when I open the passenger-side door of his car I get a whiff of the noxious air and it’s like being smacked by the angry ghost of a McNugget? What if his rusty chariot smells like cat’s breath mixed with a beer-stained, cigarette-burned couch cushion on a frat house’s porch? Hell to the no.

  I also can’t screen for guys who wear thumb rings. They are the kinds of guys who worked on the student poetry magazine in high school. If, God forbid, I did date a thumb ringer, I’d have to prepare to have our entire relationship chronicled in some kind of art form. A comic, a short film, a novella, a painting—this guy must document everything that we do together. (Especially when I break up with him. That’ll be his creative bread and butter for the next eight months, guaranteed.) A thumb ringer identifies with all of John Cusack’s movie characters and looks to the stereo scene in Say Anything as the pinnacle of romantic gestures. When I try to dump him, he flat-out won’t let me and will insist on several drawn-out phone conversations, asking me to go into detail about why I am unsatisfied with the relationship. Thumb ringers are the worst.

  And I can’t screen for guys who wear belly shirts. I don’t want a front-row seat to his wiry belly hair convention. Eww. Unless he’s ripped with washboard abs and he’s playing a pickup football game with his buddies on a sunny day, there is no reason a grown man should wear a belly shirt. That little strip of tummy he flashes me when he reaches up to grab a cereal box on top of the fridge makes me cringe so hard that my eyebrows practically bend in half. I don’t know if I should turn my head in horror or bust in with an armpit tickle to teach him a lesson.

  Nervous tics, apartments that smell like cat litter, chronic knuckle crackers—who knows what weird quirks they’ll exhibit? Clearly, I’m vulnerable to all of these horrible outcomes. Which online quiz can I take to weed them out? None! The answer is none.

  Another possibility is that I’ll meet a guy online, but he’ll live far away. As a city dweller, I’ve made it a rule to never date a guy who lives in the suburbs. Sure, at first it sounds appealing that he is a homeowner and has a car—two things that can be rare with city guys—but everything else about his suburban living situation is unbelievably annoying.

  For one thing, he will never know of any good restaurants downtown. I like it when my date exposes me to new places, but you can kiss that good-bye with a sheltered suburbanite. He only comes to the city once a month and when he does, he always goes to the same three bars. Consequently, I’ll have to pick the places we go to on every date. This will get old fast.

  And suburbanites will be overly concerned about where to park their car in my neighborhood and will ask me a minimum of five times if where they parked is “safe.” Like clockwork, they will get lost easily on the “complicated” city streets. Hey, if you like giving directions over your cell phone to a panicky dude who took a wrong turn down the biggest, most well-marked street in town, then by all means, date a suburbanite.

  Moreover, forget about going to their house for a date. Once I schlep forty-five minutes to his underdecorated condo, the panic sets in because it will dawn on me that we are in the middle of nowhere. When he explains that we will have to get in a car and drive to the nearest bar, I will frown. And when he whips out his GPS to drive to the restaurant for dinner, it will deflate any boner I might’ve had for him.

  We can all agree that online dating is terrible and that dating a guy in the suburbs sucks donkey scrotum, but I’ve done it anyway. Like having a bat mitzvah, it’s just something a Jewish girl has to do at a certain time in her life.

  With a heavy heart, I pointed my browser to JDate, which would be a great site if I wanted to marry an overeducated, socially inept guy with clammy hands. After two days of being inundated by e-mails I had no intention of responding to, I canceled my membership faster than you could utter the words matzo balls. Online dating had been a bust. Again.

  I waited a few mon
ths until I was vulnerable: I was bored, home alone on a rainy night. My friend Tia dates guys she meets online all the time, and she had recently met someone that she connected with. With a spark of optimism at her success story, I logged in to OkCupid and decided to roll the dice. Everyone says that OkCupid is the more “alternative” dating site, the go-to place to meet guys with record collections and sizable student loan debt. What better place to start?

  After uploading three tasteful pictures of myself, I turned my attention to filling out my profile. I tried to signal my esoteric tastes by tossing in references to both Belle and Sebastian and Bruce Springsteen. I went with the screen name TwoCherryCokes and browsed the available men aged twenty-seven to thirty-four.

  It was almost laughable how cliché the guys seemed. I saw video gamers who stared down the camera like it was trying to snatch their Mountain Dew and Ho-Hos away from them. Chill, World of Warcrafters! You’re trying to get a date, not ransack my castle. (Is that even what happens in the game? I’m not sure. The only video games I’ve ever played are from the Mario Brothers franchise.) If we went out on a date, I would bet money that some form of fried chicken product would make an appearance at our meal, in either wing or finger form. I shuddered with disgust just thinking about it.

  I also saw a lot of culture vultures hovering around. Their profile is filled with references to museums and symphonies, like they’re the Times art section personified. They all know how to play the violin, are “great” at giving massages, and promise to indulge me in “fine dining” on our date. These guys are the update of the “candlelight dinners and long walks on the beach” suckers from way back when. They try to project an air of sophistication, but it comes off as cheesy and desperate. The only long, romantic walks I like are to the fridge or maybe to the corner bar.

  If we were to go out, he’d present me with a lone, long-stemmed rose on our first date. I hate those things! Like, what am I supposed to do with it? Because of its stiff plastic sleeve, it won’t fit in my purse and it’ll just wilt over the course of the night like a corpse’s finger. I’d also bet that he has a collection of sensual oils and lotions tucked away in a drawer by his bed that he’d whip out at the drop of a hat like a rogue Body Shop employee. Ewwww.