In Hopes Of The Return of The Awkward Silence

Two weeks ago, I re-upped on the dating site, taking my plunge back into the dating world yet a step further by signing up for a second site, this one alluding to the vast numbers of available ‘fish’ in the sea of romance anxiously waiting to meet me. What can I say except membership was free, photos were much easier to upload, a friend had enjoyed pretty good luck with the site, and another friend was ready to give the whole thing another try herself, just didn’t want to go it alone.

I spent the two weeks reading and exchanging emails, sharing the misadventure, if you will, with the girlfriend who had also recently hurled herself and her attributes into cyberspace, hoping to meet Mr. Wonderful or, barring that, Mr. Halfway Intriguing, or even Mr. Somewhat Still Interesting by The Time The Check Comes For Coffee. Friday nights she’d arrive at my apartment bearing organic tortilla chips, preservative-free salsa, fresh made guacamole, a bottle of white wine, and her dog, clad in his flannel monkey print pajamas complete with hoody. I’d add more chips, a cheese plate, more wine, and my own dog, who was significantly more scantily clad, sporting nothing but a Vancouver bandana. She’d catch up on all her electronic messages, “winks”, and Ims. The dogs chased each other through the apartment and made repeated futile attempts to reach the cats, who were sequestered behind the closed door of the den. We’d offer each other our individual commentaries on the various possibilities (as well as on the obvious, “are you kidding me?”s) in our email boxes. The evenings wrapped up long after midnight but a good few hours, anyway, shy of the start of the morning weekend news shows. I found I was getting used to finding her on my couch on Saturday late-mornings. It was comforting, somewhat, to know I wasn’t the only person in the universe who believed it was possible to meet someone feasible through a computer screen.

Something intangible yet integral remained missing for me, though. I received innumerable text messages, “chatted” through extensive IMs, answered who knows how many emails, and accepted a date for, but due to the work schedule couldn’t make it to, an art gallery opening. As the days went on I felt more and more that I simply wasn’t, as they say, “into it,” and not just because I wasn’t finding what I’d hoped for, which was a man my age or up to five years older. No, instead I ran to the opposite extreme. I’m still getting emails and the occasional call from the man eight years younger and – strange as it feels to say it – the man (boy? Yes, boy is what I meant to say) twenty-three years younger. Otherwise, it’s the man twelve years older, fifteen years older, who wants to talk about his retirement plans. One wanted to insure me ‘lifetime visitation to his retirement villa in Costa Rica,” and here I’ve never even been to Connecticut and would frankly rather see that first. So this, I’m thinking, is middle-age dating.

“It was so much easier,” my girlfriend observed, “when I was young, and drunk.”

A friend through work decided I needed to go out with a friend of her friend, so I did. We had dinner and drinks downtown and he was truly nice, if a decade older. Someone I’d decided I’d see again. Yet when a detail came to light I nixed that idea. He’s still married, it seems, although he’s been separated for two decades. Somehow I’m not yet willing to rule out the possibility that I may marry again. I’d at least like to keep the door open to the idea. Hard to keep the door open when you’re dating someone already married.

My leap right back out of the dating pool came yesterday, the decision forming itself in my mind with one simple call to our sales office, a little banter with a fellow divorcee who’s just a few steps past forty herself (wink wink nod nod). I asked, how’s your love life? She laughed, and it was heartfelt, not disappointed. “Oh, I’m over all that,” she said. “Life is much easier without all that to deal with.”

I digested that, because it was true. Did I really want to make the time to answer emails and read profiles and pretend to be witty and interesting on a Saturday night when I’d rather be home with a great movie, my sweat pants, and my dog? Maybe at some point, but that point isn’t now.

So I pulled the plug on both sites last night, becoming magically ‘invisible’ on one and disappearing altogether on the other. I have to say, I felt immediate relief. Real conversations I can handle. What was becoming exhausting was responding to, “Tell me more about yourself.” If this was supposed to be real life, why did it feel more like a flash back to Advanced Composition?

I know it can be said that these days, if you aren’t willing to date electronically you’ll never meet anyone. I’m sure I don’t believe that. Twenty years ago, on a rain-drenched four a.m. morning in Seattle, I met Brent in a train station. I was dressed in jeans, a sweatshirt, and a ponytail. I was not trying t be witty, or charming, or articulate. Twelve months later we were married, and although it was hardly Forever After, it was absolutely a whole lot of years and a whole lot of interesting, and we’re still friends.

I’m choosing to believe in that kind of kismet, or whatever you choose to call it. Even to go so far as to say yes, I met an incredible person online this time last year. I went on to have one of the most memorable spring and summers of my life, the irony being – we’d met previously – without the Internet. So in a roundabout way that tells me I should have been a bit less preoccupied with other things during that initial encounter, and ‘meeting’ later on the Internet was just the universe’s way of giving the whole thing a second chance. Again, from that came a very good friendship, and one I appreciate.

So I told my girlfriend, the couch is always available. And my dog will be disappointed if hers quits coming to visit. Ironically, two terrier mutts wound up being the hearts who found a match out of the whole thing. For myself though, I’m going back to stepping away from the whole thing. It’s spring, summer’s coming, and if Mr. Right For Me is destined to meet me, he’ll just have to make that discovery at the dog park, or in the library, because I’m opting out of the pool. I think I’m ready to return to reality, where a ‘wink’ involves your eyelid, not the semi-colon and right parenthesis keys on a keyboard, and where a ‘chat’ involves your vocal chords, not an IM box flashing on your screen. True, eliminating the technology removes the barrier against awkward silences and pauses in conversation, but ironically, those are what I miss the most when it came to ‘meeting’ people.