I am so far out of my comfort zone, I don’t even know where it is anymore….

If you are going to really give dating a valid try, you have to get out of your comfort zone–period!  I find myself (on a regular basis, mind you) doing things that I look back on and can’t believe I even did–like last night…

On the dating site I am on (big secret–I’ve mentioned it already, I guess–Match) you can do something called winking.  If you ‘wink’ at a person, it is merely to get their attention because you are too lazy, too scared or not literate enough to actually put words together and write them a message. It is almost a throw-away–I get a lot of winks where you respond and you never hear back from the person again so who knows what they were thinking when they sent it.  In the real world, I’m pretty sure if someone actually winked at me, I would laugh in my drink cause I’m assuming I’m at a bar when this happens–not just because of who I hang out with (Vix and K), but because it seems like the only setting where someone would be foolish enough to think that would be appropriate.

Anyway, I use to only write to guys–crafting thoughtful, articulate, funny letters based on specific things in their profiles (yes, I actually read them all the way through–so many don’t!) that I was sure made me look so witty and charming  how could they not answer me immediately before someone else on the site snapped me up??   Then I woke up. The percentage of people who answer your letters is so pitifully small (If I was better at math, I would calculate how minute a percentage it is mathematically but since I’m better expressing myself through words, I will give you an approximation in words: hardly any)  So now, I join the ranks of the lazy and give a cheesy wink if I have any interest and my response rates are probably still the same with much less work.

Recently I winked at this cute guy with an interesting profile and he had looked at me a few times but had not done anything ….. When I went on last night, he had just looked at me again and he was still online (you can tell on site–it is a little stalker-ish though) so……I used the 3rd means of communication you have on Match and I IMed him. (this site has turned me into one aggressive dater–ugh!).  Lo and behold, he responded, we online chatted for a few minutes and he gave me his number and asked me to call him (things are a little backward on Match–most guys have the women call them so the women have a little ‘control’ over the situation–like the ability to hide their number if they want to)  So I am calling him today at 4ish to see if he ends up my number 20 (gosh, it sounds so official now) Number 20 will be my first date since I actually started writing this blog–versus the writing in my head I have been doing since the beginning..wonder if it will make the date feel different? (Will the tape recorder on the table top be too obvious?)

Just a note here–he happened to mention that he had been to a restaurant/bar not too far from me recently  and asked me if I had ever been there–well, I was there on a Sat night about 2-3 weeks ago with Vix and K… and Vix did everything short of dancing on top of the bar that night while K and I hid our heads (laughing hysterically) and got stuck talking with the lesbian (we think) girl who just kept telling us how cool our friend was! So no, I’ve never been to that bar.