For a Depressing Time, Date Online

Oi gevalt.

Okay as part of being a singleton/singularity/singulation kinda dude, I started up my profile on good ol' Lavalife. And so far, it's a very depressing experience (again)

Profile: Or Try to Be Sexy in 500 Words or Less

Okay you always start by trying to do a fun, witty, charming, sexy essay on yourself and what you are looking for in a 'mate'. Despite my writing aspirations, I simply cannot write a cohesive paragraph about myself. Just can't. You try and make yourself sound funny (which I am) fun (which I can be for a specific subset of fun), intelligent (without proving the Pythagorean Theorem) and sexy (yeah, right).

Honesty = Chastity

I don't want to have kids. I'm really, really reluctant to go out with a women who has kids. At age 37, this now eliminates the dating pool by 90%. Add to that, I am actually honest and say I smoke on my profile. Not 'Prefer not to Say', not 'Trying to Quit', not 'Socially'. So there goes another 9%. I am making quitting my New Year's resolution because of this. Health be damned, I need a little sumthin'-sumthin'. I am not going through another 5-year drought.

Women My Age Don't Want Men My Age

Harsh but there ya go. Most women between 32 and 40 are looking for a guy 10 years their junior (at least according to the profiles I clicked on). While one part of me can see why this is happening, when I look at women's profiles 10 years my junior, they state very explicitly they want nothing to do with 35+ men. The other part of me thinks that mid-life crisis happen to both sexes.

Saying Hello is a Turn Off?

For those not in the know, most of these dating sites work by people buying credits (or similar). With these, you can email, message etc those you are interested in. So I bought the mid-size package. In 22 emails, I had one response. She was kind enough to send me a link to her site, which listed her rates; hourly, for an evening or for an 'all-nighter'.
Other than that, nada. No responses from emails (except one, see below). Not even a courteous 'no thanks' or even a 'fuck off creep!'.

Smile!

Lavalife does have one free feature. You can send a 'smile' and one of a selection of notes (most of which I could not see myself saying to a live person). This is of course to show your interest, with hopes that they 'smile' back (with equally cheesy phrase) . Then you can spend your credits with confidence. One tactic is to shotgun them: send them out to anyone and everyone in hopes that a few hit the mark. I'm all for gun control. I try and be very specific and discerning with my smiles. No smiles back though.
Now I do understand that happens alot. What I don't understand is, alot of women say 'send a smile!' or 'write me!'. You do and nada. Again, I'm not indiscriminate or go just be the pictures: I read the profiles, compare compatibility and if its seems like it's a good enough match to start a conversation, I smile or send an email.

Now I did get a smile, out of the blue from a girl from out of town. We sent a couple of emails, but then she asked me about the whole not wanting kids thing. I was honest. Then she blocked me.

Do You Think He's Prettier Than Me?

So now I'm thinking I might not just be a congenial, kinda goofy-looking geek. I'm a monster, a hideous, illiterate, slavening, primal-urge-driven monstrosity. An Oh Henry! bar floating in the filter of the gene pool. So I did what any guy would do. I did a search on the guys. What's the competition like out there?

Dear god in Heaven.

The search comes up, it's like a buffet from a friggin' Firemen Beefcake Calendar! Muscled up, tan guys who can actually string a sentence or two together. No wonder nobody sends me an email back. The only smiles I get insist that the men show them a picture, but they don't bother to supply one (bug, big, bells go off at that). I'm friggin' doomed to an eternity of celibacy.

I'll have to see what those rates are, and if she takes credit cards...