The New Girl Round 2

After some much labored contemplation for about two minutes yesterday, I'm almost positive that I will be ending my monthly membership with Match.com this weekend.  After two months of paying $1.16 per day to be able to freely contact other electronic-dating-minded individuals, I've learned a lot, both about myself and what's out there.  I figure I've gotten my money's worth out of it, with three dinner dates paid for by my Match dates (that sounds horrible, doesn't it? Go ahead, you can say it), but I really feel disappointed in my investment.  Too bad I didn't do the money back guarantee, but I would have had to commit to six months of this silliness and I probably would have been sticking pencils into my eye sockets by that point.

Maybe two months isn't long enough to give Match it's fair shot, but I'm tired and bored.  When you cancel your membership, the wise internet programmers ask you why you are leaving their online meat market.  Although I don't think there is an option for "All my matches were boring," I wonder if I can write it in.  The next question to ponder is how I wrap things up with the gentlemen that I'm currently (and seemingly unceasingly) corresponding with via email.  Do I email them to let them know that I'm skipping town with outside-of-Match.com contact information?  I'm thinking that several of them aren't going to make any moves on their own, so my disappearance probably won't cause them to lose any sleep.  But, I'd hate to miss the chance of meeting someone just because I'm cheap, I mean bored with Match.

On a friend's suggestion (who had another friend meet someone relatively decent), I checked out Plentyoffish.com yesterday.  They credit themselves as the largest online dating website in the world (wait, I thought Match said that too?) and are completely free.  There aren't even any catches like Zoosk, this is absolutely, 100% free of charge. I set up the quick profile which, amazingly, allowed me to stipulate who I wanted to hear from.  For example, you aren't allowed to contact me on Plentyoffish.com if you have ever contacted someone who is interested in one-night-stands.  Apparently, you can be on there looking for that and openly admit it, but keep on moving if that's your primary goal.  This little tidbit should have been a red flag for me, but you all know how oblivious I tend to be to such giant notifications of impending doom.

So far, I've been a "member" of Plentyoffish.com for less than 24 hours and have received emails from five different men.  New Girl in Town Syndrome?  Probably.  I'm flattered though; all five of them said the word "beautiful," one even asked me if I was beating the men away with a stick.  I almost spit my coffee across the desk.  Complimented as I was, I figured this was another way of getting me to write back to his message, but couldn't muster up an appropriately coy response.  When I took the ladylike (and honestly, truthful) route of telling him that in fact, I was not beating the men off with a stick (or really even getting anything more than emails, but that would sound bitter), he immediately continued to shower me with flattery and ask if he could come over this weekend to cook me a meal.  Because cooking with me would be his "dream come true."  Another one practically had his key in the ignition of his vehicle over 150 miles away, sitting on go, waiting for me to throw myself at him in email form.  I'm pretty sure I could have gotten him to drive from the neighboring state in which he lives last night without saying more than about five words.

So, the paradox of my dating life is this:  the men are either coming on too strong, almost suggesting that they wed and bed me within the first 24 hours of contact (and electronic contact at that) or they are afraid of the spoken word and hide quietly behind their computer monitors.  At this point, I'm seriously thinking that anyone who has met a significant other from an online source and made it past the first date/one night stand has either amazing, divine-intervention type luck or just doesn't have a problem with poor communication or lack of interest. 

I thought I'd made some progress with a new Match, who I'll introduce you to as Mr. Nick@Nite. A huge fan of all things late 80's, Mr. Nick@Nite enjoys catching reruns of old television shows, you know the good ones that they used to show on Nickelodeon after "Doug" and "Rugrats" got over.  I think this is a pretty interesting characteristic and definitely beats the "I'm a laid back kind of guy and like just about everything" approach.  At least this guy is willing to share something that makes him a real person with a real personality and real interests!  We've been emailing for about two weeks now, but it hasn't been what I'd call rapid fire.  He's also a big Braves fan (red flag? Maybe, with my track record!) and as the topic continued to build, he finally made reference to us going to a game.  Success!...or so I thought.  Not wanting to seem overly zealous, I asked him if there was a particular team that he'd like to see the Braves play coming up in their schedule, hoping he'd pick a day and we could meet.  He said "Anyone but the Mets" and continued to chat...without committing.  Urgh!  What am I doing wrong here?  I tried the "going in for the kill" style of being the aggressor, asking them out, picking the location/time/day/etc.  That didn't work.  Now, I'm trying the more subtle approach of waiting to be asked and all I get are more emails.  What, pray tell, am I doing wrong?