Sim City

October 2006, Saturday

Code Name: Rockabilly
Location: Northridge Fashion Center/ Simi Valley House Party
Website: Match.com

What do you do when you graduate college, live with your parents, work a job you f**ing hate and haven’t gotten laid in 2 years? You get online. You peruse EHarmony. You realize after a gazillion tests and lame communication with a number of people who are not your type in a controlled manner this is stupid. You quit. You sign up for a free trial for Match.com. And you don’t tell a living soul because you SWORE that online dating was for losers and you’re not quite there yet. Except now… here you are… not meeting anybody because you don’t like bars, you don’t like clubs, you work all the time and you have been soooo out of the game you don’t even know how to flirt, even though you’re a sexy hottie. What the f**k else are you supposed to do?

Get more than one pic.

That’s right guys and girls, and I know many of you out there who have made this mistake (including myself- multiple times). You need a number of pieces of evidence to know the accurate representation of the person you may or may not decide to go out with. So after scanning, writing and receiving a number of e-mails, and yes it is true, if you are an attractive female you will receive more messages than men, but if your match in question only had one or two photos up, request some photos or a public photo Facebook link. If match in question evades: ie. Says, “Well let’s do a videochat tonight”, “I don’t have any on my office computer”, “I don’t give out my facebook/myspace page” etc. discontinue communication. You don’t want to end up like the Salmon girl in “LOVELY BONES”, do you? Or on the safer side of things, really not your type… both not the positive outcomes you want from dating online.

One such instance was Rockabilly. On paper, Rockabilly was a Simian (from Simi Valley), graduated from Otis Art school and also a halfsie Hispanic like myself. From our e-mail communication and phone conversation, Rockabilly seemed a bit sexy at first, a good guy, someone I might be interested in…

Rockabilly and I met at the mall… don’t even get me started, it was a public place! I was excited, looking forward to meeting someone who I could possibly make out with at the end of the evening. But than I saw him… and … sh*t. It was not that he wasn’t attractive, but that he was a Rockabilly with a tattoo up and down his arm, that would have been hot, except for some reason... it wasn't. My Futurama looking character turned out not to be what I expected. In other words, NOT like the ONE pic he had on his profile. Yes, I could have been made far more aware had I simply asked for a MySpace or a Facebook. But I was still hopeful and held onto my cell phone when I got into his car (although I did not sense that he was dangerous, going in a car with a stranger that you met online before hanging out is HUGE taboo when it comes to first meetings).

So onward to his friend’s house where I met the… Goth crew. It wasn’t that they weren’t nice, but what the hell did we have in common? Than I met family friends… oy, pressure. Then I discovered that Rockabilly was a vegetarian, alright cool… except I really like meat.
Finally, after hours of uncomfortable silence which = AK-WARD, I got up the nerve to tell my date that I had to get home. Finally, a glimmer of hope as we had an actual conversation, he barely spoke to me the whole time! And than it went to sh*t as he could only focus on playing me his Rockabilly music, and I mean a man showing a girl his music, that’s a flattery move and a basic component to the male and female dance of modern dating. My hope was utterly squandered when he continued into his land of ADD and jumped from one subject to the next as he sped down the 118 highway till he finally brought me home, safe.

Verdict: The Hug

When a kiss is out of the question and a hand shake is just too insulting, it is best to go with the hug. If there was any shot of anything happening a hug will be telling of the attraction. If there is a glimmer of hope, an animalistic spark gravitating two human beings together in a sexual way, if you're perceptive, you'll sense it. And if there isn’t any attraction or perception is a thing that is way over your head… it’s nice- even though they’re into you and you’re not into them.

I decided to go with the "No Bod Contact" technique. This was just not happening. Hug. Thank you. Door. Jet Away.

He was a gentleman, I give him that credit, and he was one of the more stand-up men I met while online and my first date in the online world.

I wrote him an e-mail the next day, thanking him and telling him the chemistry wasn't there. The truth. He wrote back and thanked me for being honest.

But I still quit Match anyway… and did not date for the next year and a half.