Match point

I’ve said this before: Looking for love is a difficult thing.

Looking for love in New York City is still more difficult.

But looking for love, in New York, on the internet? That, my friends, is the ne plus ultra of Difficult Dating.

It simply boggles the mind. Online Dating in New York is like a new species of animal, wholly unique in its ability to give rise to dates that are not just boring or unpleasant, but complete train wrecks of human interaction. Seriously, you guys, we’re talking some bad dates. Baaaaaad. These are dates that would make a grown man cry. Dates that cause post-traumatic stress disorder. Dates that are to the history of romance as Waterworld is to the cache of 1990s film. (That is: expensive and poorly-planned, featuring terrible dialogue and bad outfits and – sometimes –a guy who has semi-functional gills sprouting behind his ears.)

I had some truly terrible internet dates back in my internet-dating days, but my latest insight into all of this nuttiness comes from my dear friend Mardie, who is currently braving the online dating jungle and returning like a war hero after each disastrous rendezvous to regale me with the latest story. Most of them are enough to make one’s hair curl. It puts me in a difficult situation, too – on the one hand, I fervently hope that one of Mardie’s suitors will eventually turn out to be fabulous boyfriend material who can give her the loving relationship she so richly deserves.

On the other hand, I’d hate to see the endless well of entertainment provided by her exploits on Match dot com suddenly dry up, because it is some funny shit. Mardie’s misadventures are like a virtual parade of unconscionably awful men, from some guy who spent the better part of their date drooling on the table to a 31 year-old virgin who still lived in Westchester with his parents because he was, quote, “afraid of the subway”.

And then, yesterday morning, I got this email:

From: Mardie
Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2008 11:25 AM

To: Kat
Subject:

I went on a date last night with a guy who has Tourettes.

* * *

From: Kat
Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2008 11:26 AM
To: Mardie
Subject: RE:

Oh my God! How was it?!!!

* * *

From: Mardie
Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2008 11:30 AM
To: Kat
Subject: RE:

Total misery… he commented on my cleavage within the first five minutes, badmouthed his parents and bragged about how much he drank and smoked in college.

But that didn’t have anything to do with the Tourettes. He was just an asshole.

* * *

(By the way, if you’re anything like me, you are probably wondering -- since the guy in question was already something of a vulgar jerk -- if his Tourettes syndrome manifested itself in the opposite direction, i.e. uncontrollable shouts of “I love puppies!”)

(It didn’t.)

(Fun as that would have been.)

The punchline to all of this, of course, is that Mardie had been emailing extensively with her date in the weeks leading up to their meeting – messages in which it would have been easy and natural for a man to mention that he was unfortunately afflicted with a neurological disorder that caused him to noticeably twitch and stutter in between making inappropriate comments about his date’s breasts. That would be the adult, responsible thing to do, after all.

So of course, he didn’t.

This is by no means a unique occurrence. It’s happened to me, too; I once went on a date with a guy who looked, based on his photos and description, like a perfectly normal, nice-looking dude. But when I went to meet him at the appointed location, there was no normal, nice-looking dude there. Instead, there was a pear-shaped fellow (and I mean really pear-shaped, like a to-scale human representation of the actual fruit), at least two inches shorter than me (I’m five-foot-three, guys), who looked and talked just like Newman.

NEWMAN, GOD DAMNIT.

And that is why willful misrepresentations (or lies of omission so blatant that they are like a hard punch to the throat upon first meeting) are a scourge upon the face of internet dating.

There are the guys (and yes, I know girls do it too, but I have never dated any of those) who only post photos of themselves as they were 5 years ago – you know, before they gained 50 pounds and lost their hair. There are the ones who lie about where they live (with their parents!) and what they do for a living (rat-catching!). And there are the ones who, in spite of having a neurological tic that would bring the conversation to a grinding, screeching half for thirty seconds at a time, fail to say anything about it and then expect you not to notice.

Which is, at best, truly ridiculous. Because the thing about online dating is that the entire point – the whole purpose behind all that emailing and creating of profiles – is, eventually, to go on a date.

Which means that the other person is going to see you.

I mean, really…

…just…

…DUH.

As I write this, I can’t help feeling a little bit sorry that my life has become so dull that I no longer have any dating stories to post on my blog apart from those lived vicariously through friends.

But not that sorry. It is really fucking scary out there.