Being sick definitely makes one feel less attractive

If I hadn't been too tired to type, the cold that I got on Wednesday would have been enough to keep me from messaging/viewing profiles/posting here. The fact of the matter is, I feel gross and that makes me feel completely unattractive in every possible way. Who'd want to start dating a sniffling, coughing, sleepy girl who has gone without a shower for too long? No one.

Therefore, after not hearing back from Derek on Tuesday, I decided to message velcro4, a guy on the dating site who has interested me for a while. I might not have messaged, but he'd just looked at my profile, so I figured it was worth a shot. As I waited for a reply, I got this cold and I pretty much forgot about velcro4.

Then he responded last night. Hurrah! That said, I couldn't muster up enough energy to write him back until a few minutes ago. I have to say though, this is one of the best things about online dating. One can be horribly sick, but no one's the wiser. The guys sitting in front of their computers don't know that I'm subsisting on tea and cough drops. This, in comparison to meeting guys at a club/concert/bar/etc—I wouldn't be up to going to any of those places in this state.

I can say with complete certainty that no matter how good or bad I may feel about myself or whether or not his self summary is a parody, I will not be messaging Spiritof76:

"I am hella cool. Hella. Like, how much cooler can you get than online dating, right? I mean it's not like I need to be on the internet to meet ladies, obviously, I'm just really down with the information super highway, and want to do what I can to support electronic mass media. Go world wide web! I'm behind you all thew ay. So I'd really like to meet a gal who's shares my enthusiasm for technology. Also, I rock a yarmulka, which, as everyone knows, is about the coolest, hippest thing around…"

Wishful thinking

I think I did put Derek off. I've not heard from him since yesterday morning, but I've seen him online so I know he got my one line message this afternoon: "Still up for tomorrow?" Oh well.

In slightly more interesting and amusing news, NPR's "All Things Considered" did a couple of pieces on online dating today. Check them out here and here.

Finally, a bit of bizarre from the profile of simplenough:

You should message me if:
you're a homosexual black Jewish pre-op transwoman with poor eyesight. Erm… I think I just realized why no one messages me. :/
What I'm doing with my life:
I plan on opening a business in the area of "software entertainment" ('tis a euphamism lolz). I hunger for power. Mine is an evil laugh.

So you don't drink? Is that true?

Yes indeed, Derek, that's true.

Derek and I chatted yesterday morning and among the topics we touched on was food and drink. We're both foodies, but, sadly, I'm just not into alcohol. The smell (and thus the taste) is completely off-putting; however, this tends to make me an extremely cheap date.

Anyway, assuming I didn't put him off by my disinterest in drinking, I think we're on for tomorrow night.

Dark stranger from the dark-blue stream

I heard back from the Craigslist guy (let's call him Derek). He sent some pictures along with his response so now I know a bit more and it still seems good. We're going to try to get together this week. This will be my first date off of my particular dating site, which is kind of exciting. Wish me luck.

P.S. When I was trying to figure out what alias to give him, I decided to look up boys names that start with D. Here are a few interesting names I found, along with their origins and meetings.

• Darby (Irish, Scandinavian; free man, freedom, from the deer estate)
• Devon (Irish, Latin, Old English; poet, perfection, people of the deep valley)
• Digby (Old Norse; from the farm by the ditch)
• Doug (Gaelic, Irish; dark stranger from the dark-blue stream)
• Duane (Gaelic, Irish; dark one, swarthy)

Incidentally, the name I chose for it's normalcy, Derek, means 'gifted ruler of the people.'