Poems About Internet Dating

Chronicling the travails of online dating (and offline singlehood) in L.A. var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-23151719-1']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })(); CATEGORIES Hours I'll Never Get Back Rules, Tips & Immutable Truths Why I Didn't Reply. And THEN What Happened SUBSCRIBE! VIA FEEDBURNER ...or become a fan on Facebook: Or, just murder me now: I tweet.

[poemsaboutinternetdating]

what happened to the dates?

what happened is I took most of them down. hoping to turn this tale of woe into a book. step one, of course, is whisking it away from the internet.

wish me luck?

xx,

your dater

[poemsaboutinternetdating]

Rule #27: The Rule of Comedians

Both logic and heavy foreshadowing suggest your “type” includes this hapless vessel for existential dread. (A fellow minstrel. Who is King?) Night after night he lifts the sill to call the monsters. In they pour, all corpse-breath and fang: Closet-dwellers. Underbed lurkers. Creepers, keeners, pounders-on-doors. A game, you tell yourself--you trust his skill. He spent years gaining the knack for the nick of time, the turn, the on-a-dime dick joke that beats them back. Delightful, no question. But keep that guard up— this tests agility, not strength. You should check his other performances. (Also, your contract: Some night you’ll be a monster.)

[poemsaboutinternetdating]

The Varieties of Hipster Carlessness: Indications & Translations

(In lieu of a poem, an at-a-glance guide.) “I gave up my car a year ago” It broke and for six months sat outside his old apartment, even after he moved. The city has billed him for its disposal. He ignores their notices. * “I sold my car and have been getting to know the city by bike” (architect edition) It’s not that he’s classist—but desperation spoils the view. Besides, Los Feliz wants for little. His ideal mate? Sinewy, “attractive.” Willing to drive to LACMA. * “I sold my car and have been getting to know the city by bike” (vegan edition) The car was sold out of fiscal necessity, the meat renounced to lend said sale a look of deliberateness. As a twofold pain in the ass, he’s asked to dinner less often. Much expenditure has thus been avoided. * “ ” But he walked here. And he lives across town. He’ll wait until the second date to mention the DUI. Add “waiting for a cab” to any possible date scenario; consider that sum. * “I don’t have a car but I live downtown” On a map downtown looks like a place one might live. Which means he had no one to inform him otherwise. Q: What is Los Angeles? A: Fine for now. (And you’ll do, too. See also: The Rule of Grad Students) * “kinda broke so no car at the moment” Such frank speech—is it brave or is it shameless? SWM seeks Netflix with benefits. Might suit you fine, depending. * Run, don’t walk is a thing people say. I say drive.

[poemsaboutinternetdating]

Besides, You Ruined The Surprise

That’s a lot of inches, but not enough to bridge the gap between the wit I’d like to see and what’s on display.

[poemsaboutinternetdating]

Rule #19: How to Revise Your Profile (a.k.a. Rule #19: You’ll Come Crawling Back)

The same, only Different! It’s the movie every studio wants; it’s what you’ll try next, having tried and failed: don’t say cynical, say wiser investor. The market holds no grudge. So first things first: that profile could be made less patient. (This is how we get pickier as we age—pattern-recognition, the erosion of goodwill.) Might as well scare off the weak ones. Make yourself less dreamable for the dreamers. Less marriageable, to the wife-shoppers. Less accommodating— to all the wanderers seeking shelter—you’re not shelter. Try to write that profile and still sound happy. (Impossible. So put a pin in it. Likewise, disappear the fact that naming what you don’t want can’t substitute for knowing what you do. Or—no need— let it stand there; you still can’t see it.) But who needs happy when you’ve got all these lemons. You’re nothing if not resourceful. Besides. Cheerful often (shouldn't) can suffice.

[poemsaboutinternetdating]

in·fat·u·a·tion (n., offline)

Isn’t there anything else we can call this? The shift. Not into love— this first movement is solitary. Infatuation. Like a process an entomologist might study. Like an injury that will require you to be driven to the emergency room by some inconvenienced friend. The infatuated doodle adored initials on Trapper Keepers and never shut the fuck up. I guess what I’m saying is I hate that word. The condescension built in (and the catastrophe). Where is the word for what grown-ups feel? People who have survived the main event and met the bottom. We who’ve picked up all our bones and undertaken the long, slow climb to our remembered selves. If love’s a fall, this is where you consider dismantling the railing. Maybe throw a rock over and listen for it to hit. Then sit for awhile. What kind of screwdriver will you need. Is it rusted. No word for this and no rush, or not much of one, or you don’t think so—after all, you’re not an idiot anymore; yet.

[poemsaboutinternetdating]

Because Immediately After Reading Your Message, I Took My Profile Down and It Felt Fucking Great, Certain Red Flags Notwithstanding

Because holyshit goodbye. Goodbye profiles of adorable sweet and age-appropriate men who turn out to love Jesus. Goodbye Jackson Pollock, commas. Goodbye wraparound sunglasses and carefully tended abs glistening in some tropical sun. Goodbye, also, tropical sun (stop reminding me I haven’t escaped town in an age). Goodbye fake blood, prosthetic garotting, all-over face paint (I’m nerdy, but not like that). Goodbye, “some college,” when that lack of subject-verb agreement cries out for “more.” Speaking of my arrogance goodbye to your reading material. Sure, you might be reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (“reading” meaning “keeping close in case your iPhone craps out”), but I am highly skeptical about Gravity’s Rainbow. (Then again, I never finished either.) (And really, not a single book written by a woman?) (But moving on.) Goodbye, trying to think of a bar I don’t hate where I also won’t bump into friends. Goodbye getting dressed, and getting dressed, and getting dressed again. Goodbye, finally, to all of you who wrote perfectly nice messages—not crass, not cut-and-paste twee, not mean, (not funny), just perfectly fucking polite and decent messages that conveyed nothing so much as “I am interested in you as a human being,” which I probably ignored, possibly unfairly, my fear of being too much to someone more profound, still, than my wariness of being too little. Goodbye. ...

(and the silence that followed was rightly filled with ellipses)

[poemsaboutinternetdating]

Rule #14: The Rule of Condoms

Following the fraught, what-will-he-think-of-me calculations entailed in deciding to reveal that you, A Lady, are nevertheless not an undiscovered continent (certain men seeming to require protection from that most of all) and sensibly keep prophylactics on hand in case of moments exactly like this one, this rule dictates that the first one you come up with shall be expired.

[poemsaboutinternetdating]

You’re too beautiful.

I don’t trust it. (As in a horror film, perhaps

I am looking  in the wrong direction.)

[poemsaboutinternetdating]

On Smiles, Part 2

As you note, I am blessed with a charming smile; however, I was not wearing it in my picture. Have we met somewhere else, then? I didn’t think so.

[poemsaboutinternetdating]

On Smiles, Part 1

It doesn’t merit a reply nor will I flatter myself you missed mine. Yet a longer discussion is in order. Recall (perhaps you don’t) that these characters whose conjunction now represents a flirtatious, friendly face once carried out their functions apart: the first to indicate that while one thing had been said, an independent but related thing would now follow; the second to contain some incidental, tangential or confidential notion (this capsule generally occasioned by the words preceding). And now there’s this. I’m not saying I never employ it, happy monstrosity. Without it, my messages—like this poem—can seem unwelcoming (a dangerous tendency here in the age of endless welcome), but those dots (the one unfurling!), that tiny curve are sweet artifacts of our species’ most imperfect and persistent practice: articulating thought (such as it is) through language (such as that also is). Like you, I yearn for what is precise and thoughtless—want yes, like that Of course. Still, these strings, their scattershot conveyance endear me to them. I’ll hang on tight, pending upload (I despair) & unmediated connection. Maybe then we’ll be a match.

[poemsaboutinternetdating]

Believe me, my playlists ALSO last for days.

Under “favorite music” you’ve pasted (typed?!) so many hundreds of bands, stitched tight with commas (this,this,this,this,this) into a column the bottom of which I don’t reach for several screens. I know: music is what we stuff into our lives to stop the rattling. But that you can’t (or won’t) name any one thing and say this matters to me (or even did, or does right now) makes me wonder if what you worked so hard to silence might’ve run out ages ago and if you noticed.

[poemsaboutinternetdating]

Campanile, Saturday, 8 p.m.

Just rounding 30 when, for the first time in my life, I am taken to a fancy restaurant in a big city by a man I barely know. This is Dating in its mythic sense. As it plays itself in movies and on TV, eased along by pretaped laughter. Not my genre. I had a nine-year run in smaller towns, broke, falling into bed with friends of friends. (And staying there, sometimes too long. Who isn’t lovable if you’re looking?) The point is, the need never arose for a night like this. Now here I am. A late bloomer, you could say. New to the peacock dance of being alone. Maybe other people have tasted the food on dates like this, but I don’t, or can’t— nor can I finish it. My belly’s full of this foreign evening. Then to cocktails, a view of the skyline (where I don’t say what I always think about this place—that all that glitter just looks like striving). Background here: I might actually like this guy. A week ago we laughed a lot over beers in a filthy bar. Today he called and said I was thinking we should go someplace nice. Perhaps, like me, you’ve never been on this date. You still know the script: the goodnight kiss in his car, the silent debate over how it would look if you— I have to tell you something. The turn: He has lately only been physical with men. Is disinclined to reverse this trend, but wrote me because I looked like a girl he loved in college. Here the waxen moments warm into sense. It wasn’t me using the wrong fork—it’s everyone trying so hard and knowing nothing, i.e., Comedy. (Or. Yes.) At least this is a movie I would watch.

[poemsaboutinternetdating]

P.S. I also reject you on behalf of all of my friends.

“Please don’t email me if you’re in therapy or taking antidepressants.” Was the last line in your profile. Setting aside for a moment the conundrum of you having written me first— or the hours of unutterable misery this statement promises you can deliver— how else can I persuade you I’m excellent at following directions?

[poemsaboutinternetdating]

Also, Your Username Includes A Sex Act.

It isn’t your desire I judge, nor your failure to conceal it. But look around you: this  is the custom-porn megastore of "see similar users" and "sort by distance" (that's right; neither am I ashamed to call a thing  by its right name) and you share a shelf with a thousand other wrong choices. So know your customer. Maybe quote some Roland Barthes and run spell check before telling me what you’d like to do with my ass.

[poemsaboutinternetdating]

And I Also Base This Assumption On The Blonde In Your Lap In Photo #3.

I can’t help suspecting You take care of yourself means I like a girl who gets her nails done and I bite mine.

[poemsaboutinternetdating]

Rule #4: The Rule of Handshakes

Please don’t shake my hand and introduce yourself when we meet inside the bar. Or outside the bar, on the sidewalk. Or anywhere anyone can see us. Instead, pretend with me: Nobody here can tell we’re on a date. We didn’t find each other sitting alone in front of machines, calculating what we might want and what we could settle for. I never felt love straining against my insides like a hot air balloon expanding in the shed at the base of the yard—                           why was it in there?— bending the planks, shattering the single window. Maybe it’s just that I’m from California, but I think we'd all be more comfortable with a hug.