Pet Peeve

Photos mean a lot on an online dating site. Bad photos can leave a negative impression, while having one or no photos can make a profile look rather sketchy. (I learned that lesson with Ian, though looking back through my posts about him I see that I never mentioned he only ever posted one photo.)

So my biggest pet peeve is photos taken in front of a mirror. They're not terrible if you can't see the camera, though they're not great. However, when one can see the camera in the picture, it's generally a bad thing. It's not that hard to have a friend/roommate/relation take a decent picture or three—do it.

Canceled date—My choice

Two weeks ago, I received an IM from a guy on the dating site that was different from the usual: it was something to the effect of, "I'm playing a game. I'm trying to guess what else people are doing while they're on [the dating site]." Then, without any comment from me, he made some guesses that were silly, but intriguing. Since I was bored and he got my attention by writing more than just "hi" like many do, I wrote back. We chatted about mostly benign things, and, after almost an hour, he gave me his phone number and asked if we could continue chatting in person sometime. I told him it might be a week or so, since I was really busy that week, but gave him my number anyway.

When he texted me this week, I agreed to meet him this weekend. However, I started having second thoughts: he's 36 (I'm 25), he lives about as far away from me as possible while still being in the same city, and he's 36. I guess I'm just not comfortable with such a large age difference.

Then, when he asked me to send him the info about the gallery opening I'd suggested, I found that he'd deleted his profile from the dating site. WEIRD. That's just not OK with me. Therefore, I did something I've never done before: I canceled on him. If the same thing had happened to me before Henry, I might have still gone on the date, albeit with a bit of worry. I was really desperate—and I'm not afraid to admit that now—to go on dates. I was happy to find, as I sent the cancellation text, that I felt relief and no regret.

A Date with Nate

As I mentioned in my last post, I went on a date on Friday night. The previous weekend I'd received a message from a guy I'll call Nate with the subject line "Long shot." He wrote saying that he had received a pair of symphony tickets and figured, based on my profile, that I might be interested. I was. I rather like going to the symphony.

However, I had a minor thing to work through first: did I want to go out with someone who says he "sometimes" does drugs on his profile? After some thinking (and consultation with my dear friend Superquail) I decided to go for it. He didn't seem like the kind of person who would show up to a symphony date high, nor did he seem like someone who was deep into drug culture, so I figured it wouldn't be an issue. It wasn't. Plus, I didn't really see Nate as someone that I would want to date long-term; if he was, then we could talk about it.

All in all, the date was fine. We met for dinner before heading over to the symphony. It turns out that he's never been to the symphony, at least not as an adult. His dad (who does not live in the area) bought him the tickets (orchestra section!) so as to try to get him to be more cultured (or so Nate supposed). Nice dad.

Nate was a nice enough guy, but I doubt I'll see him again. We'd talked about board games during dinner, and at the end of the date he said I should call him if I was ever going to a board game meet-up; I might, but I might not. What was good was that I went on a four hour date and barely thought about Henry at all. Onwards!

Late-Night IMs

I went on a date last night and I'll write more about that in a following post, but first I had to share these charming IM's I received yesterday. First I'm offered food, and then…

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