Greetings from Florida

I've been super busy lately and have had little time to even check in on the dating site, let alone message anyone or check out new profiles. However, I have received a number of messages, profile-views, and "woos", which are the cop-out way of telling someone you like them. It's like poking on facebook. Pointless except for the fact that it lets a person know you've shown some interest. If you're going to bother, go ahead and a send a real message, even if it's short. At least there's something to go off of.

Of the messages sent my way, a few have been real losers, a couple have piqued my interest, but most just sound sort of blah. Unfortunately, the one that sounds most intriguing and compatible is in Florida. Apparently he was recently in my area and decided to check out girls here to see if there were any good ones. He seems to think I fit in this category as he's sent me one message and 4 IMs in the last week. Normally, I stop considering a guy if he's more than 15 miles away. Why should I even think about someone who is 2496 miles away? I suppose we could talk online, do the long-distance pen-pal thing, but that really hasn't worked too well for me so far (I've not heard from either Zeke or Dan in more than a month, and they were only 60 miles away), and I'm not really sure I want to invest the time and energy in it. One thing is for certain though: I will write him back, at least so I can acknowledge him and show that I'm not a complete jerk for ignoring him (I have been really busy).

Have you ever started a relationship this way (i.e. communicating electronically over vast distances)?

Edit: In the five minutes since I wrote the above, Florida IMed me again. I guess I have to give him points for his persistence.

Update to previous post

I just went back to the dating site and looked at Cocky Guy's profile. Wow. Bad. He spells music "muzaq" and, frankly, is really not attractive in any of his four photos. The impressions I got from his first e-mail—that he's very concerned with all things trendy and his style of writing is so cocky that I can't even think straight—are beyond true when looking at his full profile. Sorry, Superquail and *ily, I think I'm going to not think any more about this guy.


Oh, and I haven't heard from Zeke in quite a while. I was the last to send a message, so I think I'm going to give up on that front too.

Spring Break

Zeke's been on his, now I'm on mine. I haven't heard from him in a while. Oh well. I did hear from a few random guys on the site, who were interesting my one part of my profile or another. There are a couple who look pretty decent, but I've yet to e-mail either back. One agreed with my assessment that my life is an awful lot like an Avenue Q character's (Princeton's), but he was quick to add that it wasn't a bad thing. The other sounded a little cocky and made the claim that he's also a native of my city—but he's not. Call me picky, but if you live on the other side of the bay and not in the city proper, you are a native of the area, but not the city. Should I get over this and message him back?

Zeke's Back

Zeke, the guy who wasn't sure if he wanted to be his "first choice's second choice or his second choice's first choice," is back. We've exchanged a few messages, and I like where it's going, but he's still far away. We can't just meet up for coffee sometime after work. If anything comes of this chatting, and we do decide we want to go on a date, it's going to take some serious planning. I guess we'll cross that bridge if we get there…

These are all aliases

After speaking with my aunt—who is reading this just like the rest of you—I realized that I have failed to mention one important thing: I have given an alias to all of the guys I have written about so as to protect their true identities. I doubt that any of them will ever see this blog, but it seems like a good idea.

Also, I think I will take the advice of my aunt and one of my dear friends (who cannot post comments due to her being on the wrong side of the Great Firewall of China), and cut my losses with Zeke. Despite his continued interest in my profile, he still hasn't responded to my last message. Besides, he lives 60 miles away and that would just make things complicated.

Moving on…

Favorited, positively-rated, stalked, then nothing

So Zeke has made me one of his "favorites," looked at my profile multiple times today, and rated me 4 out of 5 on personality, and yet he still hasn't responded to my message. I don't know what bothers me about this really, he does live in Santa Cruz and any relationship that came out of this would be difficult because of the distance, but I guess I've grown accustomed to having someone to chat with. And, let's be honest, someone pursuing me. I do rather like that.

Zeke's dilemma

Today I got an interesting message from Zeke. The subject line was "My Dilemma" and it read: "Is it better to be my first choice's second choice or my second choice's first choice?"

That's it. He has a point, really. However, I felt compelled let him know that he's not my second choice, so much as another choice. I wrote back and said this: "Make of this what you will… I have always been, and plan to remain, a one-man kind of girl. I can only direct my attention towards a single person at any given time, hence my previous reluctance to engage in a conversation. I hope that you will consider this in your decision."

I haven't heard back from him yet, but I do hope he understands where I'm coming from.

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.