The bell tolls for thee

Several years ago I started my first blog, to chronicle a distinct part of my life. I am still posting to that blog more than five years later, but because it's tied to a specific part of my life, it sits dormant many months of the year.

In 2007 I started a blog to write about anything and everything that tickled my fancy. That was my slice-of-life blog. I ended it in the summer of 2011. The timing seemed right.

I started writing columns for inboxcupid.com in the spring of 2011. That didn't last long. I posted my material here and decided I'd spend a month or so writing about dating and relationships. I wasn't sure what format I'd use since my writing was no longer for a dating website audience. This blog has no audience, really, it simply became a place for me to write about something other than crime and government.

I don't know how many more years I'll write for my first blog. I started to run out of things to write about a couple of years ago, although I found new things to write about during 2011. Without going into detail, the blog is like a historical record of one aspect of my life, and when that chapter of my life comes to an end, so will that blog. I don't do things for the benefit of that blog, that blog follows the experiences in my life, the choices I make and why I make them.

My four-year slice-of-life blog was inspired by a friend whose blog I stumbled upon. When I stumbled upon it, I didn't know the author, but I enjoyed his writing. I responded to his columns at length, and he encouraged me to put my own thoughts down in blog form. I did. More than four years later I still haven't met the Wisconsin resident that inspired my blog. His blog ceased within a year of mine starting for reasons beyond his control. He also stopped reading my blog regularly when he was no longer actively penning a blog of his own, so he might not have a clue that my blog died this past summer. Nonetheless we communicate by email occasionally and are determined to get together for a Major League Baseball game one of these seasons.

The dead blog chronicled personal thoughts as well as opinions and observations on some very obscure topics. The blog was anonymous, but I did share it with a handful of people. I'm pretty sure they stopped reading it, too, even though I posted new items regularly. I was at a low point this summer when I decided to pull the plug on the blog. I was afraid I'd be too personal and too honest, and even though it seemed my friends weren't reading it, I couldn't take the chance that one of them might read what I was liable to write.

I don't have a truckload of stories about bad dates and painful experiences, although I could have come up with several more stories about the wacky world of dating had I been inspired to do so. Without the potential of an audience for this blog, however, the inspiration is lacking. As with my previous blog, I had no interest in attaching my name to this blog or begging my friends to read what I was writing.

During the past month I came up with a few topics I enjoyed writing about and shared a few thoughts I might not have expressed had I felt compelled to shape them in the form of a full-fledged column for inboxcupid.com. I really wanted to write columns that generated interaction with an audience, something I really haven't had through my other blogs. I didn't get that via inboxcupid.com, either, save for one person whose writings I have enjoyed, even if our discourse has been limited.

I won't say this blog is dead, but I'm not sure I'll ever have a compelling reason to add another chapter. This blog will not be about any future highs, or the subsequent lows, of my life, and I'm not sure I want to expend the energy to share memories or thoughts about dating and relationships when there's little chance I'll reach more than one person. If there's a place in my life for that, there are other ways it can be accomplished.

So once again I'm a man without a blog, for the most part. I'm not sure if I should feel liberated or empty inside.

Are there chick flicks for men?

I went to see the new Sherlock Holmes movie over the weekend.

I never saw the first one and had no interest in seeing the new one, but a friend invited me to join him on Saturday night, so I accepted, as I wasn't going to have any other offers that night. My time would have been better spent writing Christmas cards or working on a long, tedious winter project I have vowed to complete, but I chose instead to suffer through a Saturday night screening of a blockbuster film during its opening weekend. (It wasn't bad, but I don't enjoy the big screen experience all that much, as annoying people irritate me in a hurry.)

I don't get excited by much of what Hollywood churns out these days. It's not that I'm sophisticated and too highbrow for the latest Tom Cruise action flick, I just don't find a lot of movies to be that entertaining. Actually, I'm rather dumb when it comes to those smart, sophisticated flicks. I struggle to follow the nuances of many movies and often fail to see the brilliance of stories other people rave about.

I see the occasional superhero flick, forgettable comedy or disposable horror flick, but what I like as much as anything is compelling storytelling. Although many of them are a little too cheesy, I enjoy chick flicks. Many of them lack the sharp, memorable writing that sticks with you months or years down the road, but they need a compelling story to carry the film, even if the story relies on some fantastical element.

So what's the opposite of a chick flick, and what movies would fall under that classification? Are there genuine male chick flicks? One of my favorite movies, Kevin Smith's "Chasing Amy," might be the male version of a chick flick. It's driven by characters and story, with relationships woven into the story line, yet it has humor and biting dialogue that you don't get in a typical chick flick.

If I'm right, if Chasing Amy is the male chick flick, why can't I find more of them in the theater, or are they out there and I'm just not noticing them?

So many questions

I find myself asking a lot of questions these days.

I don't ask them out loud, only in my head. There are many, many questions, and I'd love to know the answers.

I think I have long asked these questions, but I probably ask them more often, and am more cognizant of them, when I'm drifting aimlessly through life as a single person.

What are these questions I'm asking?

"Why would anybody marry that dope?"

"Why would anybody put up with her?"

"Why am I not surprised he has a trophy wife?"

I spend a lot of time wondering about the personal lives of people I see, meet or work with.

It's a sad little game I play, and it makes me wonder what people who know me, or pass me in the mall, think when they see me.

Manufactured friendship?

More than a decade ago I was working one night per week at a bar in Bloomington, the biggest suburb in the Twin Cities. One of my co-workers, Shawn, invited me to a social gathering somewhere on the east side of the Twin Cities. He was a good guy, and is a Facebook friend today. I haven't seen him in several years, but he found me on Facebook for whatever reason, so we keep in touch, virtually.

I'm not sure how or why Shawn became connected to a particular social circle he was a part of, but he invited me to join him at a gathering one summer evening. It became clear to me during the party that this wasn't your typical social gathering. No, it wasn't an orgy, there was nothing illicit occurring, at least not that I was aware of. There was a bonfire, alcohol and modest socializing. It was like any other party, except it was a contrived social group. I don't remember how or why these fine folks found each other, but they were a collection of random people who sought out a social group.

The Internet was in its infancy back then. That doesn't mean this group wasn't engaged in social networking before social networking became mandatory, but I didn't sense it was a cutting-edge group blazing a trail all would soon follow. I sensed this was a group of people who had found their way to each other through the old-fashioned channels, whatever they were.

I don't remember much about that night, other than a guy asking me if I was new to the group. That's when it became clear to me that the social gathering was contrived.

That didn't make it wrong, but it was far from organic.

Given the fact that I just spent a Saturday night cleaning my unheated apartment -- don't ask -- you'd think I'd welcome any chance for human contact. I wouldn't argue against that, but I still struggle with the concept of contrived human contact.

Thanks to the Internet you can find a group of strangers to gather with in major cities across America on almost any given night. If you live in International Falls, Minn., you're still fucked, but in major metropolitan areas there are plenty of random strangers waiting to socialize.

One of my best friends is a big user of meetup.com, a website dedicated to bringing strangers together. I have no problem with the concept, and I admire people who find others with common interests via meetup.com.

My friend is far from anti-social, and has no problem making friends, especially given the fact that she travels about the country for her job on a consistent basis and is meeting new people every single day of her life. She uses meetup.com to further expand her social networks, and she knows a lot of great people thanks to meetup.com.

Meetup.com has networking groups for every social, political, health and educational niche you can imagine. And then there are groups that are run by my friend, groups that exist purely for social gatherings.

My friend started out as a member of one such social group and eventually became an assistant organizer of events for the group. For political reasons she ended up leaving that group and starting a similar group. With the help of others she plans social activities that run the gamut. Last night she had a holiday party at a bar in St. Paul.

I've become somewhat anti-social in my old age, and no matter how progressive it might seem to participate in an online social network I struggle with the idea that it's a bit desperate of a concept. Despite my reservations I attended the holiday party.

The party attracted a variety of people who don't seem to mind socializing under such contrived circumstances. There had to be at least a 30-year span between the youngest and oldest participant. Some of those who attended were regulars at such events, some were brand new to the group. I ended up talking to a woman who has participated in other meetup.com groups, but was new to my friend's group.

This social group is not intended to serve as a dating pool, but according to my friend her group has sparked more than a few relationships. I'm unclear why people attend such functions, but there's a group of regulars, and always somebody new showing up to the larger group gatherings that happen occasionally, as far as I can tell. There's a small membership fee, per se, but it's not much, and I'm not sure it's mandatory, actually. There's no pre-screening of participants, all that is required of first-timers is a willingness to track down a group of strangers at a set time and place.

If I moved to Las Vegas tomorrow, meetup.com might provide a great resource to meet people interested in a variety of things that interest me, or meet people who are outgoing and always interested in meeting new people, regardless of their interests.

The idea of meeting people at a bar through a pre-arranged event instead of randomly wandering into a bar makes all the sense in the world. So why do I find the concept so perplexing, and why don't I find it more appealing?

A question

If you are highly respected in your profession, earn a good salary, live comfortably and enjoy your time away from the office, are you considered more successful in life if you're married? Are you looked at as less successful if you're single?

So now what?

This is my third blog.

I have one that is seasonal, so it sits dormant most of the year. I have another that I retired earlier this year. And for now I have this one.

My name is not attached to any of my blogs, although the seasonal blog is quasi-public, and I have shared some of my writing with friends and co-workers. It's no secret that it's my blog, but my name is not tied to it.

My anonymous blog was not entirely secret, either. I shared the link with a precious few people, people who either tired of my writing or just didn't care enough to keep up with it. The blog was random and allowed me to experiment with my writing. I also used it for therapeutic value on occasion. When there was danger of it becoming too therapeutic earlier this year, I decided it was time to end it. The blog still exists, I do go back and read things from it occasionally, but I no longer provide fresh content.

I have thought about starting a new anonymous blog, but haven't had the urge to do so. The challenge in doing so is that I'll want to refer back to things I wrote in my previous online life, but I won't want the old and new blog to be connected. It's a sticky wicket.

Prior to ending my anonymous blog I started penning columns for inboxcupid.com. My contributions were intermingled with the writings of others, and although it was labeled a blog, I considered what I was writing to be more like columns you'd see periodically in a newspaper.

When I was granted the privilege of penning columns for Inbox Cupid I didn't know how the site would evolve, or if my columns would garner a following. As detailed previously, my career as an online dating site columnist was over in short order. Perhaps I'll get a second chance at online stardom, but I'm not expecting it.

When I launched my column I decided I would write anonymously. Part of the reason I chose to do so is that I'm nobody special, so it doesn't matter if my name is attached to the columns. There seemed to be no reason to attach a name to the column, so I opted not to.

Now that I have moved my columns to a blog site, I have to ask myself a few questions.

How long are you going to continue this blog?
The idea behind my columns was to interact with my readership. As noted previously, I don't have a readership to interact with at this point, and I'm not promoting this blog, in part because I don't know how to effectively do so. And my experience with blogs, as both a writer and a reader, is that most people have a passing interest in what you're doing. Without a major push by an established entity, the blog will never take off. Therefore I intend to pen a few thoughts during the remainder of 2011. That's the extent of my commitment to the brilliance I have demonstrated thus far.

Are you going to remain anonymous? 
Yeah, pretty much. I'm certainly not going to promote my writing to anyone I know. I did share my columns with a co-worker, who provided the inspiration for the last column Inbox Cupid published. But I had no interest in promoting my efforts to my Facebook universe, and that's not going to change now.

What will I or won't I write about, given that this blog site is anonymous?
Part of me would love to share my thoughts and feelings about life and my place in this world. It might be cathartic to cut open a vein and write about how I ended up where I am today. But I'm not interested in doing that right now.

So now what?
For the next month I have a platform to share my observations about relationships and the world around me. How many blog entries that results in, I don't know, nor do I know what the topics will be. If for some reason I am inspired to continue in 2012, so be it. If not, the world will survive without me. In that I have no doubt.

Heavy lifting

Is it safe to assume that most people reading an online blog about dating have been through the experience of moving to a new home or apartment?

Think back to the last time you moved. Did you move by yourself? Did you load that U-Haul truck on your own? Did you carry that couch out of the old second-floor apartment by yourself? Probably not.

When it's time to move you recruit the help of your friends or relatives. Why? Because it's too difficult to move all your crap on your own.

That's the way I look at life.

Sure, you can accomplish most of life's challenges without the help of others, but periodically you need somebody else's help to meet the challenges of day-to-day life.

I see/hear it periodically: people who are in a long-term relationship envy those of us who are free to sit up late at night eating saltines and watching mindless television without having to answer to another person. The grass is always greener, they say.

Some people really don't want to share their life with anyone else. I think they're in the minority. I don't know that for a fact, it's just my theory.

The longer you go through life as a single person, the more challenging it gets to break the cycle, I believe. Eventually you get to a point where you assume all hope is lost, and stop trying.

You still want somebody there to help you with the heavy lifting, but you start to believe you're going to have to do it all yourself.

I have never been a tough guy. I learned years ago I didn't want to do all the heavy lifting on my own, but most days I have nobody to help me with it. And now my back hurts.

New world order

The preceding columns of this blog were written specifically with inboxcupid.com in mind.

I spent four years chronicling my thoughts and observations for a blog I discontinued in the summer of 2011. I have maintained a separate blog with a more specific purpose since 2006.

The ability to write a blog for a website with a built-in audience had great appeal to me. I didn't have the best dating stories to share with the masses at Inbox Cupid, but the ability to interact with readers and share thoughts and opinions with an audience appealed to me.

That dream didn't last long. Like many good online ideas, the lifespan of Inbox Cupid appears to be short. It might be reborn, and it might be huge, but for now it's comatose, and my columns for its blog are water under a troubled bridge. It was always my intent to maintain a blog with copies of my columns for Inbox Cupid, and I finally published them all this fall. And here I am today, a guy with a blog and no readership.

I'm a guy who tells stories for a living ... other people's stories, most often. Without other people, I don't have that much to say.

So let's assess my life as you know it. I have no audience for this blog, no social experiment to market via this blog and little hope that my holiday season will be anything but lonely. It doesn't sound like this blog has much of a future, does it?

Being a loner at Thanksgiving and Christmas isn't terrible, as you never have to worry about how to divide your time between two family gatherings. For Thanksgiving my only question was, "What time is mom serving dinner?" My brother, on the other hand, had to split his time between his family's gathering and that of the in-laws.

Christmas presents similar circumstances. New Year's Eve, however, sucks when you are single.

People in a relationship will often say that New Year's Eve is no big deal. Yeah, easy for them to say. Try being the single guy with no party invitations on a night when half the population gathers in some form of communal celebration. Suddenly working on New Year's Eve at a bar, restaurant or parking garage doesn't seem so bad.

Staying at home and watching TV with a loved one seems like a nice way to ring in the new year when you have a significant other. I don't care if New Year's Eve is a contrived celebration, not having a party to go to is depressing. Any single person who tells you "It's just another night" is lying.

It sucks being at a New Year's Eve party where everybody seems to have a significant other and you don't, but it sucks more to be without anybody to share the evening with. I'm not sure what Dec. 31 has in store for me, but I'm not looking forward to it.

Suddenly I don't loathe Christmas nearly as much.

Is the old cliché no longer valid?

It has been said that love happens when you least expect it.

Looking for love? You’re looking in all the wrong places.

If the old cliché is true, then why the hell are millions of people looking for love in too many faces?

What do most of us do when it’s time to consider buying a new car? Twenty years ago we would have bought a Sunday newspaper, poured through the classified ads and searched for a great deal on a Pontiac Grand Am. In 2011 I bet most of us peruse online listings to get an idea of what we’re looking for and where we can go test drive it.

I don’t need to tell you the Internet has changed the way we do our day-to-day business. So why not use the Internet to meet new people we’d otherwise never find in our day-to-day lives?

You’ve heard the statistics, I’m sure. I don’t know them offhand, so I’ll make them up:

• More than 100 million Americans are using online dating sites, every day.

• Nine out of every 17 relationships is a result of online dating.

• More than 34.7 percent of all marriages this year are a result of online dating.

• More than 88 percent of JDate users meet their life partner through the site.

• Nobody has ever gotten married as a result of his or her Craig’s List ad.

The problem I have with online dating is that it’s no different than shopping for that Grand Am. You will spend less time test-driving cars you have no interest in, but it makes finding true love less organic.

On the other hand the world of dating has always been filled with contrived activities and resources for single people. Singles dances, telephone date lines, speed dating and matchmaking services have long been subsidizing the organic way of meeting your soul mate. None of them, however, have had the power to connect us with so many, so quickly.

These days shopping online for a life partner is as common as shopping online for airfare. So why is it some of us remain reluctant to get on board?

Have you been unwilling to book a ticket aboard the online dating express?

Ladies, I understand your suffering

Not so long ago I wrote about how I love, and hate, blogs.

I found a new one thanks to an email response I received to a previous Broken Arrow Saloon column. In that response Leah pointed me toward one of her blog entries from earlier this year, a public service announcement for guys trolling for women via online personal ads. (Not every guy is trolling, I know, but some certainly are, as Leah points out.) http://lmz87.blogspot.com/2011/03/friendly-psa-to-guys-that-are-dating.html

I think Leah’s comments are spot on, and one would think most, if not all of them, are fairly obvious, but just because a guy has $35 dollars for a monthly membership doesn’t mean he has any sense at all.

One of her recommendations reminded me of something I learned long ago. “Don't send a standard message to every single person but personalize it a little.”

Before dudes were sending their response to ads via “clumsy, short-attention-span qwerty express reply for Android,” I learned that reinventing the wheel was not the top priority for the competitive sportsman angling for a date. It was much simpler to send the same generic response day after day after day. And how did I know this?

I faked an online ad. I faked more than one ad back in the day. And I was good.

I’m not proud of this, and I never admit this to anyone, but I faked several ads over the years under the “women seeking men” banner. And guys,  I learned a lot about us.

Why did I do it? Curiosity, mostly. But it did provide market research I couldn’t get anywhere else.

Back in the glory days of Craig’s List personal ads I dabbled a bit. I looked for intriguing ads from women seeking men, picked the ads I found most appealing and sent a personal reply to the writers. Perhaps I was sending my response to men who had beaten me to the market-research punch. Or perhaps I just wasn’t as charming and fascinating as I thought I was, because I quickly found that watching paint dry would have been a far more productive use of my time.

One day my warped sense of humor was in overdrive. I decided that if I was banging my head against the wall – a wall badly in need of a fresh coat of paint – why not at least amuse myself by receiving responses to a personal ad for a fictional woman? There were always five times as many ads posted by men as there were by women, so it stood to reason that I’d get at least a few responses to a decent ad by a fictitious woman, right?

Let’s just say I underestimated my drawing power.

I set up a new email account exclusively for the ad, then proceeded to paint a nice picture via a Craig’s List ad. I wanted my fake ads to sound appealing without sounding like my gal was blessed by the grace of Hef. I did a good job. I had more than 100 responses flood my inbox during the first 24 hours of the first fake ad I posted. I pulled the ad, I had a large enough sample size.

Lest you think I had all the scientific data I needed, guess again, Mojombo. Yep, I did it again. And again. And again.

I ran more than a handful of fake ads over the years. A few times I was emboldened enough to grab a picture off a website and upload it with the fake ad. Yeah, that was pretty crappy of me. I grabbed older pictures of people not in the Minneapolis area, figuring nobody would bust me for misappropriating their image.

I learned a lot from those experiences and came to understand what women go through when placing an online ad. This list isn’t all encompassing, it’s just a list of the first things that come to mind, in no particular order. For the sake of this list we’ll refer to the fictitious girls from all of my ads as Jenni.

1. Boundaries don’t mean much to numerous men perusing the ads. In every case I gave age parameters of the potential mate Jenni was looking for. If Jenni was 24, she wasn’t interested in a guy in his mid-30s, and she said so. Yet there was always at least one guy who was 41 that claimed he didn’t look his age, and therefore was the perfect catch for a 24-year-old woman trying to find her way in the post-collegiate world.

If Jenni didn’t want to get involved with a guy who has children, that didn’t matter, either. Jenni was always a non-smoker, and the smokers of the world didn't seem to push the issue, for the most part. That or they weren’t honest.

2. Many men can barely form a complete sentence. Leah noted in her PSA that simple grammar is a challenge for many in society. Jenni learned that, too. Many guys didn’t take the time to send more than one quick sentence looking for any kind of response. In the old days guys sent a link to their MySpace page. In recent years guys were more willing to send their mobile numbers, so Jenni can start sending them text messages instead of an email response.

3. A picture is worth 1,000 words. Plenty of guys were willing to send at least one photo with their response, even when Jenni didn’t have a profile picture. Jenni received just about every picture you can think of: the self-portrait in the bathroom mirror, the “look at my fancy car/motorcycle” pose, the Glamour Shot, the friend/relative/ex-girlfriend tandem and, of course, the “check out my manhood” special. Why that last approach made sense to any guy responding to a normal, well-rounded, down-to-earth girl such as Jenni I’ll never understand.

4. Not everybody is an idiot. There were a few guys who asked for additional pictures of Jenni. Perhaps that request was simply made in hope of receiving something more salacious to drool over. But perhaps the request was made to prove that there was a legitimate woman on the receiving end of the email.

A few guys provided simple replies, explaining that they didn’t want to go into a lot of detail without knowing the ad they were responding to was legitimate. It has long been known by Craig’s List users that many ads are set up in order to send some sort of spam in return, or collect email address for mass spamming purposes. Some guys wanted to know that there was somebody – hopefully a woman – with a pulse on the receiving end of their response. Thanks to jerks like me, they had a right to be skeptical.

5. Volume, volume, volume! As Leah noted, some guys send canned responses to every ad that is slightly appealing.

I don’t know how many fake ads I have written over the years. It has been a few years since the last time I bothered, but I’ll bet I’ve done 10 or 12 over the years.

Sometimes I would post one fake ad, peruse the responses and move on with my life. Other times I’d run two or three consecutive ads for two or three different fictitious women, just because I was bitter and angry, and that was my passive-aggressive way of dealing with it.

What did I learn from posting successive ads? Yep, some guys have a canned response they copy and paste on a daily basis, hoping they get a nibble.

Every so often I’d fool myself into believing that I could beat the online personals numbers game and set out to meet a woman through a free dating website, yet I’d quickly sour on the idea. Somehow souring on the idea led to my despicable fascination with finding out who my competition was. Perhaps that was supposed to make me feel better about being the diamond in the rough that could never shine because I was being overshadowed by the masses.

I never replied to any of the responses I received. I’m a jerk, but not that big of a jerk. I had no intention of misleading a guy for weeks on end, then disappearing, or worse yet, mocking him for being duped. I simply read the responses as they filtered in, got bored and quickly abandoned the email account, leaving dozens of guys wondering why they didn’t hear back from Jenni.

The late Andy Kaufman allegedly enjoyed portraying the character Tony Clifton. As I recall from the movie “Man on the Moon,” (which is worth renting – or streaming online – if you’ve never seen it,) it was mentioned to Kaufman that at some point you need to let the audience in on the gag, otherwise it’s like telling a joke without delivering the punch line. The gag was Tony Clifton. Kaufman would never let on that Clifton was a fictitious character he was portraying.

Why perpetrate a gag or hoax if you never let the audience in on the joke? Sometimes you need to do things for your own amusement, entertainment or enlightenment, and nobody else’s.

It wasn’t exactly performance art, but that’s what I was doing all those years ago, providing my own amusement, entertainment and enlightenment. Today I’m letting the audience in on my hoax. If you weren’t amused or entertained, I hope you were at least enlightened. 

Have an online ad horror story of your own?

Some people make a big splash when they dive into the dating pool

I love blogs. And I hate them.

When it comes to writing, I have been paid more than most people for my brilliance. (Given most writers are poor, I’m clearly not all that brilliant.) Being paid to write makes me neither a great writer nor a grammar cop. I consider myself a storyteller. Having been paid to tell stories for many years, I’d like to think I could spin a good yarn when I really want to.

That doesn’t make me better than those who aren’t paid to tell a tale. The problem is that too many people who think their life is outlandishly fascinating also think they can write a brilliant blog. Some can, others not so much.

Despite my love/hate relationship with the blog community, I’m always in search of a good blog. My favorite blogs are those that chronicle a mission, especially when it comes to a mission tied to the author’s personal life.

A few years ago a woman working for Good Morning America decided she was going to go on 31 dates in 31 days, and chronicle the experiences through her blog. In the end she would pick one person to pursue for a second date. She played by a set of rules she established for her nightly dates, had no problem lining up potential suitors, evidently, and ended up as the subject of more than one GMA fluff piece about her quirky experiment. (That’s how I found out about her pursuit of happiness.)

Postmortem: She got married about a year after completing her stunt in early 2009, has a forthcoming book that will share her keen insight with the masses and has spawned several copycats looking for their 15 minutes, some of whom she now pimps via her website. #envyandjealousy

When I stumbled, quite randomly, upon a blog by a woman trying to reinvent her life in her mid-30s I thought I had hit the jackpot. Her effort to restart her life after a long-term relationship that didn’t pan out was fascinating. Her story of a disastrous date cultivated through a personal ad was highly entertaining, and I have gone back to reread it more than once. (And no, I won’t share a link to it. It may be a public blog, but I don’t have her permission to promote her writing, so I won’t.)

Her blog was intended to be a daily chronicle of her life, but for reasons I still don’t know she abandoned the effort. She didn’t seem to have much of an audience for her blog, so perhaps it wasn’t worth it to her to follow through with her plan, although I sensed from one last post she made that technical issues (lack of Internet access) kept her from sustaining the online project. I recall her noting that she was chronicling her continued adventures in an old-fashioned journal, with the intention of one day providing updates for the online world, but that didn’t happen.

I guess by default all good dating blogs come to an end with either the writer finding a soul mate, at least temporarily, or the writer giving up in defeat after months of trying, and failing to achieve a level of online celebrity status through his or her blog.

Thanks to the fancy email address you’ll find at the end of this column, I have a new fix. Leah has been chronicling her experiences and observations in the dating cesspool for a while now. She has written on a variety of topics, one of which I’ll explore in more detail next week. She seemed to be on vacation in June, but she was back at it earlier this month, proposing the concept of a 30-percent boyfriend.

Her proposal is not a friends-with-benefits arrangement, it’s more than that, but less than the obligatory daily phone call and implied date on a Saturday night. It’s a great idea, but it’s doomed to failure should she ever obtain it, and she admits it’s probably just a fantasy.

Two people having a part-time relationship, but still free to pursue something long term with anybody else on the planet … it sounds like a great arrangement. But it doesn’t take Dr. Phil to figure out one of the participating parties is going to want 40 percent, or more, and the other person is going to be content with less than 30 percent of a relationship.

Leah dares to dream, which is more than I have the energy for these days. You can read about her 30-percent fantasy, as well as her dating experiences and observations, at http://lmz87.blogspot.com/.

Her blog isn’t exclusively about splashing around in the dating pool, but there are a variety of nuggets for those who want to stand at the edge of the pool, like me, rather than jump in and swim.

One of her nuggets reminded me of a few online experiments from my past. I’ll chronicle those next time around, I promise, Leah.

Have you turned your love life, or lack thereof, into an online expose for the peeping Toms and Tinas of the world? Wave your freak flag and tell me about it.

How do you put your best foot forward when it is broken?

When is the right time to dip your toe in the dating pool?

We all want to look and feel our best when we make our first impression, and most of us are humble enough to know we’re not perfect. (I’d like to think we’re all that humble, perhaps I’m kidding myself.)

My friend Mike is facing a dilemma right now. He has been an eHarmony member for a while, but recently he has had a new challenge in life. He has had health problems this year, and although he is working and going about his day-to-day life, the recovery and side effects of his medication have taken their toll.

The problem is that he has been corresponding with Erin, and the two have a good rapport going. Erin, however, is questioning if Mike is being honest about himself because he has been hesitant to meet her. What she doesn’t know is that his medication has taken a physical toll on him, and if he does meet her right now, he certainly won’t be putting his best foot forward. (No, he didn’t break his foot.)

So, does he tell her about his health problems, his road to recovery and the side effects of his medication, medication he won’t have to take for the rest of his life? Does he meet her, even though he doesn’t look and feel his best? (I saw him this week for the first time in about six weeks, and I could see the difference immediately.) Does he ask for her patience in meeting for the first time, given his situation? All good questions.

To Mike’s credit he wants to maintain a sense of normalcy in his life. If he meets Erin, after explaining his situation, he’ll find out if she is really somebody special, somebody willing to overlook his temporary health setbacks.

I can’t blame Mike for wanting to go about business as usual, but the cliché is true, you get one chance to make a first impression.

I think it would be tough to meet a woman who told me up front that she doesn’t look or feel her best, yet is in the process of recovery. It doesn’t have to be a major obstacle to cultivating a new relationship, but that’s easily said.

If I were Mike, I’d ask Erin for patience and not begrudge her if she keeps scouring eHarmony for Mr. Right. If I were Erin, I’d be understanding of Mike’s situation, wish him the best, keep in touch and let the chips fall where they may. But that’s me.

Only they can decide what makes sense for them. I hope this helps them make the right decision.

What would you do? 

Remember when we were all in a hurry for a first date?

Life is one big fad.

Big hair, flannel shirts, “baby on board” car signs, hotornot.com – we love a fad.

Online dating is not a fad, however, it is here to stay. Perhaps the ways and means will change, but the Internet has changed the way we go about our business, and not temporarily.

If you grew up collecting comic books, as I did, and still regret that you could never find that rare Spider-Man comic book for your collection, all you have to do is search eBay. If you have the cash, somebody will have the book. Life is just that simple. If only it were as easy to find the love of your life. (If you have the cash, there’s a Russian bride waiting for you, guys.)

In the old days I had to go to the comic book shop in downtown Minneapolis if I wanted to score that elusive Spider-Man comic book. If I were lucky I’d make it to a comic book show and have access to the inventory of dozens of comic book dealers who didn’t have a storefront, or a girlfriend. Comic book heaven, that’s what that was.

In the old days you had to go to a bar, private party, church social group or creepy singles dance to meet the love of your life. (I met a woman who went to a contrived singles mixer circa 2001; she was genuinely creeped out by the experience.) If you were lucky you met the love of your live at a friend’s wedding. Damn lucky, that’s what that was.

Just as the world of comic book collecting changed radically with the advent of the Internet, so did the world of dating. You didn’t have to interact with people in a social setting in order to make a first impression. Instead of going out to a social event and meeting somebody new, you could shop for a new boyfriend or girlfriend online, much like you’d shop for a new car. I’m not saying that’s wrong, but I never thought it was the best way to meet somebody. It seems as if I’m in the minority when it comes to that opinion.

There are new methods for our madness, but in the end the process is quite similar. Instead of going to a car dealership to see what’s on the lot, you peruse the local Ford dealership’s website to see if they have a dark blue Escort. In the end you still end up kicking the tires and taking the vehicle for a test drive before putting $1,000 down.

Instead of going to a bar to see who might be single, you peruse the online ads to see who might be an eligible, blue-eyed escort to take to your friend’s upcoming wedding. In the end you still end up kicking back with a beer at a local watering hole and testing your future date’s physical and emotional compatibility with your own. With any kind of luck you’ll spend far less than $1,000 to meet somebody who is worth your time and feels the same way about you.

Online dating is not a fad, but the websites and methods of meeting people online will continue to evolve, and that’s a good thing. One dating fad that no longer is en vogue, however, is speed dating, and that’s a shame.

I may be skeptical and old-fashioned, not to mention cynical and tired, but I went to a speed dating event several years ago. Speed dating had already reached its plateau, but there were plenty of seven-minutes dates to be had at bars throughout Minneapolis. Like all good fads, speed dating was quickly imitated and duplicated. I don’t know who came up with the idea, or where it started, but once the idea hit Minneapolis, numerous companies, local and national, saturated the market with events. I attended one such event, paying for my buddy to join me so I wouldn’t have to go it alone. (I was far from the only person who was unwilling to go it alone, I learned.)

I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the event I had chosen drew a few more women than men. As the women moved from chair to chair, a few of them had to sit out each round.

There are drawbacks to speed dating, as some events give you five minutes to spend with each potential mate, others give you eight. In some cases five minutes is more than enough time to know the person across the table isn’t for you, but other times eight minutes doesn’t give you as much time as you’d like to scratch all the surfaces you’re dying to itch.

I liked the speed dating format because you couldn’t hide behind an old photo or words on a computer screen. Sure, you could still lie about your occupation, hobbies, age or marital status, but your first impression, for better or for worse, was a truer representation of who you are.

Speed dating seemed like a better way to meet somebody than fishing through dozens of online personals. Yet somehow what seemed like a good idea to so many five or seven years ago has become a passing fancy. My my my my my.

Speed dating, did you love it or hate it?

Playing by my rules should be the law

There should be rules when it comes to online dating.

Not unwritten rules. Legitimate rules that are like traffic laws. If you get busted then you get fined, or lose your license. Lie about your age? That’s a fine. Lie about your marital status? License revoked.

Now to be slightly realistic: There should be universal rules that govern the first encounter between two people who find each other through the miracle of online communication and outdated jpeg photos.

We’ll assume that if you’re trolling online and get a bite, you’ll go through the motions of exchanging messages a few times before graduating to the phone call.

If neither party is discouraged by the telephone conversation then it’s probably time to have the awkward first encounter in a public place. Call it a date if you want, I don’t care. But the first encounter should be more like a job interview than a date.

First dates are for a night at the comedy club, a stroll through the zoo, a haunted hayride or touring a local brewery. Some of those ideas are better than others, but they’re all first dates. When your first meeting is a result of online personals, stick to the job interview.

If you play by these rules, you’ll never find yourself flying solo when you return from the restroom. (That happened to one of my buddies during an online dating encounter.)

1. Pick a good place to meet. Meeting at a public place is obvious, but make sure the time/place of your meeting is when the bar or coffee shop isn’t ridiculously busy. If it’s hard to get a table or hear each other, you’re wasting your time.

2. Show up on time. If you have to hang out in your car for 10 minutes because you’re early, so be it. (You have a cell phone, pretend you’re finishing an important conversation if you need an excuse to sit in your car. I have faked a phone call many times in my life. You should hear the conversations I have during those fake phone calls.)

Don’t make the other person sit there wondering if you’re going to show up. If you want to be proactive, get there early and make sure your future spouse knows how to find you immediately upon canvassing the room. First impressions are important, don’t ruin yours by being late.

3. Be honest. It should go without saying, but I’ve heard more than a few stories about people being unpleasantly surprised by little white lies, not so little white lies and big fat lies they’ve discovered upon meeting somebody for the first time. Don’t paint a picture – or send a 5-year-old jpeg – of what you used to look like. Don’t expect that your occasional smoking is not a deal breaker for an adamant nonsmoker. Be honest before you meet. If you lied about your age by a year or two in your personal ad, so be it, but be honest before you meet. (That little, harmless lie might already be a deal breaker, but perpetuating it won’t reverse the effect.)

4. Leave the baggage behind. Everybody bears the scars of hard lessons they learned from previous relationships. But don’t talk about past boyfriends/girlfriends/spouses when talking about who you are. It may be necessary to reference an ex when telling a story, but keep the focus on you, not who you used to date.

5. Set a limit and stick to it. When you agree to meet, set a time limit for the interview, be it 60, 90 or 120 minutes. If either or both of you are disappointed, you only have to make nice for a finite period of time. Even when you think you have hit it off, stick to the agenda. You don’t know if the other person is being polite by not putting an end to your seemingly pleasant exchange. If he/she likes what he/she sees, you’ll see her/him again soon enough.

It’s not a felony if you choose to play by your own rules, but it should be. Although without scofflaws, what would Jerry Springer do?

Did you have a lousy online dating job interview? Pour your heart out at the Broken Arrow Saloon. We’ll gladly pour you another drink!

Ten types of guys using online dating

I’ve read more personal ads than I care to admit, but confession is good for the soul, so here it goes. 

Once upon a time personal ads were limited to the printed page. Back in the late 1990s I read plenty of free 35-word ads in City Pages, a Minneapolis alternative newspaper. (The alternative media, Jerry. That’s where you hear the truth.) I even placed one of those ads, and thought I hit the jackpot when I met Mary. She didn’t feel the same way, evidently.

Since the demise of newspaper personal ads I have viewed hundreds of online ads on both free dating sites and members-only sites, such as match.com. Many paid sites will let you register and browse for free, and that’s all you need to do to find out which of the office MILFs is trolling online for Mr. Perfect. If you work in a large office setting, I recommend playing that game, I can just about guarantee you’ll find Betty in accounting or Chuck in IT.

Most of the ads I’ve read are from women seeking men, but I have read more than a few ads by men seeking women. Call it market research, scouting the competition or a self-esteem boost, it doesn’t matter to me. All I know is that there are 10 types of men who respond to personal ads. Or am I wrong?

These aren’t mutually exclusive. Here’s what I have come up with:

1. The young and fun guy. He’s typically in his 20s, perhaps a college graduate and lines up with about 1,000 other guys in his demographic for a $5 beer at an overcrowded, overhyped party bar on the weekend. He knows a ton of people, is connected to thousands more via social networks and could get a date any time he wanted. What he typically doesn’t admit to himself is that those potential dates usually aren’t old enough to hang at the bar with him. If confronted with the fact he has an online ad he’ll blow it off as if it was a lark after a night of mas Coronas.

2. The socially conscious guy. He doesn’t believe in the trendy trappings that entice the young and fun guy, he has reached a higher state of consciousness. He might be in his 20s, but there are plenty of guys in their 30s who buy vintage button downs at the secondhand store, too. He’s looking to meet his soul mate at a coffee shop, environmental rally or indie rock concert, but he’s open to meeting a like-minded, quasi-political woman online.

3. The outdoorsman. He’s a laborer during the week, hunter and angler on the weekend. He’s a good guy to know if you need new brake pads for your Pontiac or a ceiling fan installed. He may be a rugged outdoorsman, but unlike his ancestors, he has adapted to modern times. He has a depth finder and underwater camera for the boat, as well as a GPS receiver in his Smartphone. That Smartphone also enables him to dabble in online dating. He is looking for an all-American woman. These guys tend to be in their 30s or older, as it takes several years of employment to afford the truck, boat and snowmobile.

4. The road warrior. He’s not an outlaw biker, but he plays one on the streets and highways of your city. Whether it’s a crotch rocket for cruising around the metropolitan area or a Harley for weekends spent cruising the highways and byways of America, he lives to ride, and rides to live. He likes selling his bad boy persona, even though he is likely confined by the same socio-economic trappings as everyone else. Hence he finds his way to an online dating site. A younger warrior likely favors a crotch rocket, an older warrior usually rides a Harley since they’re typically easier on his back.

5. The successful guy. This guy defies logic, as he is successful in most everything he does. He has a great job, drives a nice car and is well connected to a network of equally successful working professionals. There’s no challenge this guy can’t conquer, yet somehow true love has eluded him. He’d probably tell you that because he has been so busy succeeding in every aspect of his life he just hasn’t had the time to meet the right person. He may be right, but more than likely it’s no accident that he is single. If he’s not looking for his female counterpart then he’s looking for a trophy wife who will put him on a pedestal. Occasionally this role is played by a guy in his late 20s, but this is more often the domain of guys in their 30s and 40s.

6. The hopeless romantic. This guy has so much to give, and will pour his heart out in a personal ad, or response to yours. He may very well be a nice guy with plenty to offer, but he lacks a certain something, perhaps through no fault of his own. He is likely looking for a woman in a similar situation to his. These guys tend to be in their 30s or older and are using online ads out of a sense of desperation. They don’t want life to pass them by.

7. The doting father. These guys are in their 20s or 30s. They are relationship veterans, typically, and won’t let their parenting responsibilities interfere with their personal life. They don’t neglect their children, but they don’t have custody of them, so they tend to think of themselves as single guys with no strings attached when they set out to begin a new life. They’re the male version of born-again virgins and not that interested in dating women with children.

8. The second lifer. The second lifer may also be the successful guy, hopeless romantic or road warrior. What sets them apart from their contemporaries is that they’ve already experienced the circle of life. They have adult children and are looking to start anew. Some set theirs sites on a younger woman, others are interested in women their age, so long as they’re camera ready for a future installment of Real Housewives of New Jersey. If a second lifer is 48 years old, he won’t date a 48-year-old woman if she looks 48. If he’s looking for love online, appearance is highly important to him.

9. The retiree. Increasingly people in their 60s and 70s are turning to online personals to find that second or third spouse, ideally the last one they’ll ever need. They’re often online because they want access to pictures of their grandchildren on Facebook, but once they learn their way around the Internet they learn there’s online love available to them, too. A retiree is not likely to kid himself, he’s not going to try to sell himself to women half his age. If he could afford to be a sugar daddy, he wouldn’t be wasting his time online.

10. The dirtbag. The dirtbag may disguise himself as the young and fun guy, successful guy or the hopeless romantic. What sets him apart from all the rest is that he’s only looking to get in a woman’s pants. The term player is sometimes used to describe a dirtbag, yet by definition a player isn’t a dirtbag, so long as he is playing with other players.  When a player misleads a woman who is looking for a relationship, he ascends to the dirtbag throne. The epitome of the dirtbag is the guy who is married or has a girlfriend but doesn’t let the technicality that is a wife or girlfriend interfere in his extra-curricular activities. Unlike players, a cheater who seeks out his female counterpart isn’t exempt from the dirtbag crown.

So, who did I miss?

Guys, what types of women have you found through online ads? Women, did I miss a category of men who respond to your ads? Bonus points for responses that include an online ad horror story.

It was a small world after all

When she told me she might be pregnant, I knew I had made a big mistake.

Angela called me one evening a few weeks after she decided Andrew really wasn’t her boyfriend. I was still a bit shell shocked by the idea that she was dating my buddy, and now all of a sudden she’s suggesting to me, a guy she barely knows, that she might be pregnant with my buddy’s child. She had to know I would call Andrew, right? (I didn’t.)

For the life of me I can’t figure out why Angela would suggest to Andrew’s friend that she might be pregnant by him. It defies logic, but most good stories defy logic in some way, shape or form.

So why was Angela telling this to me? Let’s back up a bit and remember what life was like in the early days of online dating.

Before eHarmony was a household name there weren’t a billion online dating sites to choose from. If you wanted to scour the Internet for Catholic, Jewish or atheist singles, you didn’t have a specific online destination.

Craig’s List perfected the art of free online classified ads for everything from casual encounters to long-term relationships. But Craig’s List certainly wasn’t the first site helping you find your soul mate via the Internet, sans a monthly membership fee. In the early days of the Internet AOL was king, and it provided plenty of local news, information and services through its Digital City brand. That local service included free online personal ads.

In the spring of 2000 I dabbled with Digital City’s free online ads. Already a skeptic of the personal ad culture, I voyeuristically read the ads from single women in the Twin Cities. I was intrigued by a woman named Susie, and responded to her ad. We chatted by email for a while, yet for reasons I don’t recall, our correspondence ended. She candidly told me about her experiences with the ad she placed, and I eagerly absorbed it. (The one thing I remember specifically, 11 years later, was her description of the outfit she wore on a date. She called it a black FM dress.)

 I never met Susie. She was a few years older than me, and a lawyer. She seemed out of my league. I was a 29-year-old working professional, but I wasn’t much more than an older version of a 23-year-old college graduate. I hadn’t matured much during my 20s, even though I’d already suffered heartbreak I never fathomed possible during my college years. (I can’t explain that heartbreak, either, but it was ridiculously stupid in retrospect.)

Back in 2000 we didn’t have cougars. Sure, “American Pie” gave us MILFs, but the cougar lifestyle hadn’t been glorified at that point. Even though I sensed Susie was intrigued by me, I never seriously considered meeting her. (I just tried emailing her via her old AOL address, which I remember to this day. Surprise! She no longer uses it.)

Instead I met Angela. I responded to Angela’s ad. She replied.

We ended up chatting by phone, and I quickly learned that she had started dating Andrew. She never mentioned him by name, but she made it clear that she had started dating a guy she met through her ad. We had a second phone conversation about a week later and she started referring to Andrew as her boyfriend. At this point I wasn’t interested in chatting with her on a regular basis if she thought she was in a committed relationship, so I wished her well and told her to give me a call if things didn’t work out with her new boyfriend.

She called me about a week later. She was having doubts about her boyfriend. He was busy and giving her excuses as to why he couldn’t see her on a regular basis. There was something during the conversation that triggered my spider-sense. I asked a few questions and learned that her boyfriend was a guy named Andrew, living in St. Paul.

My buddy Andrew, the guy I played darts with most Thursday nights, also lived in St. Paul. Andrew and I didn’t know each other that well, we’d met through mutual friends a couple of years prior, but I knew him to be a serial dater who was quick to use the Internet to meet women. And I hated him for it. He’s a good-looking, charismatic guy who did just fine without online personal ads, but as they say, the rich get richer.

I was rather certain Angela was dating my friend. She noted that she had his picture as the wallpaper of her computer. This was 2000, before everyone and their sister had a digital camera. Jpegs weren’t passed around like pitchers of beer at a frat party in those days.

Despite the fact it was unwise for a woman to invite a guy she had never met to her apartment building, she invited me to her new apartment so I could see the picture of Andrew. Sure enough, she was dating my friend. I didn’t know what to tell her. She thought she had a boyfriend after a couple of dates, and I highly doubted it.

I drove home that night wondering how I wound up connecting with a woman who was dating my friend. I took it as a sign that I wasn’t meant for the world of online personal ads. She was the first person I had met through an online ad and what did I get for my effort? One hell of an awkward situation.

Angela invited me to have lunch with her a few weeks later. She decided Andrew wasn’t boyfriend material after all and must have decided I was worth pursuing. Against my better judgment I had lunch with her, but the weirdness of our situation was something I couldn’t overcome. (I did see her one more time, and that triggered an unexpected encounter with a co-worker. Perhaps I’ll share that tale another day.)

 I don’t remember where I had left things with Angela when she called me to tell me she might be pregnant, but that was the point where things went from ridiculous to sublime. And no, I don’t think she was ever pregnant with Andrew’s child.

That was my first experience with online dating, way back in 2000. If that wasn’t enough to scare me away then I’m an idiot.

Here I am, 11 years later, writing about relationships, dating and painful memories from my past. I have dabbled with online personal ads over the years, but never seriously. I have had my share of relationships, but once again I am single. I’m 40, tired and more fascinated by people than ever. I plan to share stories and insight from my life, but I also want to share the observations and experiences of my readers. My life is mildly interesting, but yours is probably far more colorful than mine, and I hope to learn about it as I write this periodic column.

And please tell me I’m not the only one to have met an Angela.

Want to share your thoughts and opinions about Angela, Andrew or my extreme misfortune? Need to vent your frustrations about the single men or women in your city? Want to buy me a drink? Leave a comment below or send me a private message. Hey, this ain’t no advice column. I really am as dumb as I look.