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.

What a difference a year makes

For those of you who've been reading my blog since the beginning, it may be hard to believe that it was a year ago this week that I had my intense IM relationship with the guy who seemed absolutely great (Ian)—until he disappeared. It's difficult for me to imagine that I'd ever make that mistake again. For one, there are better things to do than waste one's entire week of vacation IMing with one person, no matter how cool he may be. For another, well, there were so many warning signs. So anyway, I feel that I've learned a lot since then and am trying to be much more rational about this whole online dating thing.

As for the Henry/Adam situation, I've not heard anything more from Adam since Monday; I am however going to be seeing Henry again this weekend. He invited me to go with him to a nearby cafe for a board games group. Nerdy? Perhaps. Right up my alley? Totally. I'm really excited about this. Oh, and from the "it's a small world" files: one of you, a friend of mine from college, actually knows Henry from high school. I discovered this through the wonder that is Facebook. Sing it with me: "It's a small world after all, it's a small world afterall…"

He might exist

Ian might be a real person, there is someone by his name at the university, but there is absolutely no information other than his name with which to verify or negate his supposed identity. In the Curiouser and Curiouser file I can add this, though: This morning I had a message from the dating site letting me know that someone had given me 4 out 5 stars on personality. It had a click here for a hint link, so I clicked and who's profile pops up? Ian's. Yet, it still says that he hasn't logged in since Saturday. What the heck? Well, regardless of whether or not he likes my profile, we are clearly not going on a date today, seeing as I've not heard from him in days. Fortunately, I've been invited out to dinner with a group of friends, so I will not be at home alone tonight.

In other news, I received a message from another guy last week (I'll call this guy Zeke) who actually had a high match percentage with me. I looked at his profile—it was well-written and he sounds like a cool guy—but I can only focus on one guy at a time and I was so preoccupied with Ian that I didn't give Zeke more than a passing thought. However, I did respond to his message since he did seem like a good guy, and told him that I was just starting to see someone new, so thanks but no thanks.

Well, he looked at my profile again today, so I decided to try again with Zeke. I just sent him a pretty humble message saying that I was too hasty in turning him down, since it seemed the guy I was planning on dating didn't actually exist. If he was still up for chatting, I would be happy to hear from him. We'll see… I'm off to dinner.

Do you actually exist?

I sent Ian an e-mail this morning telling him he'd better contact me, either to tell me why he'd been absent for four days or to be honest and tell me he never wanted to hear from me again. I am sick of restless sleep, concern for his well-being, and suspicion of his true identity. I'm not going to e-mail him again, but I'd love to be able to mail him the following letter:


Dear Ian,

Why would you send me so many e-mails and spend so much time chatting with me only to disappear? Did we get too serious too fast? Are you afraid of commitment?

Do you actually exist, or did you create this online persona so that you could get to know me without ever having to meet me? Today I called the academic department you said you work in and asked to leave a message for you. The woman I talked to told me there was nobody by your name in the department. If you don't work in that department, do you actually look like the guy in the photo you put on your profile? Do you actually have a brother who's deaf or a history as a high school football player notorious for the "hippo dance"? Is anything that you told me true?

You do realize that I am so bewildered by this whole situation that I've started to laugh about it? Of course I'm hurt that I spent so much of my time and shared so much with you, but now I'm just amused by your willingness to waste so much of your time with someone you're never going to meet or talk to ever again?

If, for some reason, you decide you want to contact me again, you better have damn good proof that you've been comatose, held captive by FARC guerrillas, or something along those lines for the last week. Otherwise, you have no chance with me every again.

Sincerely,
Katie

Where are you?

So he was definitely supposed to be back in town tonight, as he told me he was going to tutor tonight so that we could go out on Thursday. I really think I should have heard from him by now. I've started searching for him on Google, but his name is way too common to come up with any useful information. I've even searched his name in combination with words like, crash, accident, and obituary. Nothing. Ian seems to have just disappeared off the face of the Earth. Not only have I not heard from him, but he hasn't logged on to the dating site or AIM. How can someone go from 3-6 hours of IMs and multiple e-mails everyday to nothing at all?

Still nothing

I'm starting to become concerned for Ian's well-being. I'm sure he's fine, but to not have heard from him for two and a half days is starting to eat at me. I sent him a very brief e-mail this morning just to say hello and ask if everything was all right, but I never heard back. Hmm…

Weird…

After exchanging multiple e-mails and IM every day for the last week or so, I haven't heard anything from Ian since yesterday afternoon. In most relationships, this would be normal; however, we've been in such constant contact that this is weird. He's supposed to be coming home tomorrow after having been working out of town for ten days, so perhaps he's just tying up everything there, but I'm just a bit perplexed. Hopefully I'll hear from him tomorrow…

What a wonderful week

I didn't post this week because I've been spending so much time in front of the computer as it is. Right after V-Day I started chatting (IM only) with a guy I'll call Ian. He's my highest match on the dating site now (he just joined the site a couple of weeks ago) and his profile is really well written, so I took the plunge and e-mailed him to tell him as much. He responded and it went from there. We've been exchanging a ton of e-mails and IMs, though we've yet to talk on the phone. I've been on vacation this week, so I've basically scheduled the few things I need to do around his activities to maximize our ability to chat.

I really like this guy. He's in graduate school, a huge music buff, and quite nice to look at, too. He's smart and witty, and calls me on all of my snark and sarcasm. He's been sending me all sorts of new music, though mostly Scottish in origin, and sends me a message every morning just to say hello. We're set to have a date this coming Thursday and, if that goes as well as we imagine it's going to, we'll spend Saturday together.