Late Night IMs - Part 456

I recently received this gem of an IM. Without any initial pleasantries, he went with:

where do pencil skirts, crisp hardbacks, leather pumps and an alarm clock rank among yer favourite things?

I almost responded, because it was a lot more interesting than "hi" or "i like yur smile", but he's 22 and lives in the UK.

Late Night IMs - When Will I Learn?

Silly, silly me. After getting home late last night, I logged in to the dating site to reply to a message (read more about that below). As I was doing so, I received IMs from a variety of guys. Surprise, surprise, none were worth responding to. Here are some of the choice messages I received:

Guy (whose profile picture is just of his abs):
   - Hello
   - How are you ding?
   -*doing?
Me: closed the chat window


Guy #2 (whose username is a very non-sexy Disney Movie title):
   -Sadly you're not looking for casual sex. :(
Me: closed the chat window


Guy #3 (whose profile pic is him with a half naked male doll (or maybe it's an avatar?) posing next to him):
   -hi whats up, hows your night goin
Me: waited a moment to see if he'd correct the spelling of "going" but the realized he wouldn't (given he'd also forgotten an apostrophe and a question mark). Closed the chat window.


I sincerely doubt I would have responded to any of these anyway, but I was more interested in writing a message to Björn. Yes, Björn, not Bill, Bob, or Buster. You see, this gent is Icelandic, so I figured I should give him a genuine Icelandic name as his alias. Anyways, he messaged me over the weekend, right after I'd reactivated my account and I decided to write back. Now, seven or eight messages later, we're gearing up for a date tomorrow. I don't know that anything will come of it, but who knows?

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.

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…

New look for Second Round

Now that I've been through my first relationship that got its start online, I'm feeling less frantic and/or desperate about making the whole thing work. I hope that the new colors make the blog more readable (sorry for making you read green text on black for so long) and also lend a more relaxed attitude.

That said, you'd think I would have learned the lesson of leaving myself logged in on the dating site late at night. Apparently I haven't. I received these charming instant messages last night:

AboveEnvy: you+me=bow chicka bow wow ;)

and then:

Juangalt: We should rub our privates together tonight

Really? You guys think you're going to get me to respond by starting off like that?  Sorry, I don't write back to such entreaties—I also block people like that, as I've done for both of you.

Evening chats

Last night I was IMed by a guy on the dating site who has looked at my profile a number of times. I might not have written back—according to the site, we're only marginally compatible, there are a lot of things about which we think differently, and I've never had any inclination to message him—except that he directly addressed something on my profile, rather than simply saying "hi" as so many do. We chatted for about half an hour about mostly non-personal things before I decided I was bored and ready to go to bed. So, to stop chatting, I typed something to the effect of "I'm a schoolteacher, so I've got to go to sleep now." He responded with "Sweet dreams."

I logged off after that, but was left a little unsettled by that last comment of his. Perhaps, to him, it means nothing more than "bye" or "good night," but to me the phrase is much more personal and intimate than that. I guess I just didn't like it that someone so unfamiliar to me was wishing me "sweet dreams." Hmm. Am I weird for feeling this way?


Today's silly (from Craigslist, as usual):

NON-SUPERMODELS NEED NOT APPLY - 22

Hello to all the supermodels out there. If you are single, excellent! If you are not, well, too bad for you. Here is a tall, dark, and handsome guy available on the market. Though I must warn you, I am very picky. If you are not a tall, rich, supermodel, please close this ad now…

I sure hope this guy was joking. Supermodels on Craigslist? Yeah right.

Debating politics: Turn-on or Turn-off?

After being IMed last night about politics (in part, I assume, because I have some political positions for this election on my profile), I have to say it was a bit of a turn-off. I mean, I guess it was flattering to receive an IM that was about something substantive, but at the same time, an in-depth debate about redistricting is not really what I'm on the site for.

For those of you currently in relationships (or who can remember past relationships in detail) what do you think about this? Are you turned on by a political debate with your partner?

And on a lighter note: Here's someone else who has some feelings about what he does and does not want to be IMed about (taken from his journal post):

"I would not like to get any messages from any users that are pro dog fights. Also, you can trick me into going to a dog fight if you create a poster that said, "Dawg Fights" but frankly I wouldn't like being tricked into it. What sort of person are you if you go around looking for love on [dating site] and then you organize dog fights? I wish dog fights involved two dogs in airplanes shooting down each other. I would never root for the Great Dane. Only if this was some sort of fantasyland can we ever see a great dane winning."

I suppose it is worth noting that this guy lives in Texas…

IMs & Bad Usernames (cont.)

After not receiving messages from anyone all week, I got three within an hour tonight. Weird. Unfortunately, none of them were from people in which I have any interest. It's something, though.

Now, I have these to add to my list of bad usernames on the dating site:

• 15dollarWilly (Ew. That's all.)
• Anualsects (Don't bother disguising your true intent with "clever" spelling changes. Anyone with half a brain can see through this and realize where you're going with this.)
• BigBadgerJohnny (Is this supposed to make you sound manly? Brawny? My dictionary defines badgers in this way: a heavily built omnivorous nocturnal mammal of the weasel family, typically having a gray and black coat. By this definition, you are a weasely, overweight night-owl who is prematurely gray. So not attractive.)
• BigMonolith (Are you using your username to compensate for something or is your ego really that big?
• DiscoCottontail (I'm picturing John Travolta circa Saturday Night Fever but with Easter Bunny ears to accompany the white suit.)
• DisgustThing (Now that's good self-advertisement…)
• Guruturtle (I'm stumped. Are you a guru for turtles or is that your spirit name?)
• KarmaAdjuster (Maybe this guy should get together with Guruturtle?)
• MaximumSlug (Go talk to DisgustThing. Perhaps the two of you could work on better names. Then again, with your skills (or lack there of), the results might be pretty scary.)
• TrevyTrev (How old are you, 5?)

Oh, I could go on like this forever. There are just so many bad names. I'm sure I'll collect a few more in the coming weeks, and then I'll post them. What are the worst (or best) usernames you've encountered?