Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Need Advice!!!

I decided to give online dating another try. I'm not sure how I feel about it, but I'm locked into doing for at least the next few months. Whether I like it or not. The whole thing just makes me a nervous wreck though. I feel like I never know what to say or how to come across flirty and fun through my words on the page. I feel like I can never adequately describe myself when having to write about me. It makes me uncomfortable.

Then there is e-mailing people!! Ugh I never have any idea what to say or how to break the ice. Or make myself memorable enough to get a response. Basically it's really hard. Plus I haven't really told anyone IRL about it either because I feel like there is still a stigma about online dating. Even though it happens all the time now.

Anyway, I've been on the site for a couple of weeks now. Here's what's happened so far.

One guy "winked" at me. So I e-mailed him back this little paragraph and tried to be funny. His e-mail back to me? "Ur pretty i want to kiss u". Ummm that's it? Not even the words fully written out?? Plus WTF?!?!?! So that one went into the trash folder.

A second guy "winked" at me. But his profile was about his religion and his love for God, and how he tries to live for Christ. That's good for some people, but I'm not particularly religious. I believe in God, but that's about the extent of my religion. Also he lived in another state like 4 hours away. I didn't understand why he would even contact me.

A third guy e-mailed me. I wasn't really into it from his profile but I gave him a shot anyway. Because for all I know he could just have had as hard a time as me in writing these things. We exchanged a couple of e-mails and he seems OK but his grammar and punctuation was awful. I'm sorry but that is a huge pet peeve of mine. How hard is it to just quickly re-read what you wrote? Also he never capitalized the beginning of sentences. Ugh annoying. Anyway I overlooked all that because other than him, no one else was showing me any interest.

His third e-mail though, creeped me out so much I had to stop. He kept on going on and on about how he looks for girls to do certain things with him and how he was willing to do the same for girls, even if it involved fetishes. That what he wanted was his deepest darkest secrets and that he would tell them to me if I wanted to hear. Nope sorry. Not into fetishes like that. There was more and there was just red flags all over the place. NEXT.

Finally a guy winked at me and he seemed kinda cute and funny. So I winked back. Then he followed up with an e-mail that was reasonably written!! No text speak at all! We exchanged some e-mails and I was really liking what I was reading. The other day he suggested we meet for drinks. This is where I get nervous. I feel like it's a little fast to already be meeting. Plus he doesn't have a car so I will have to drive 45 minutes to meet him. I'm not crazy about that.

I pushed my fears and nervousness aside and agreed to meet this coming Friday in Hoboken which is near where he lives. That was on Monday evening. It's now Wednesday and I haven't heard from him since. We still have yet to pick a time or a place. I don't know what happened. Maybe he's waiting until Friday to pick the place and stuff? I'm a planner and I like to know ahead of time what's going on. I'll feel rushed if he waits that long. Plus I'm so nervous to begin with that I just keep on wanting to cancel. The more time that passes by with no response, the more nervous I get.

I don't know what to do. Should I e-mail to see what is going on? Wait it out? Cancel because I feel very uneasy already?

Ughh I hate this!!! Please give me advice!!!

5 comments:

Margaret (Peggy or Peg too) said...

sometimes if we feel something is not quite right it isn't quite right!
Do you really think a guy who lives in Hobokon and has no car is a guy you are looking for? It's not like he lives in manhattan. That is odd to me. but then again I'm not dating him.

Why not try a few sites and see if the guys you get are different from the types you are getting.

If you really care I would drop an email asking if you're still on and the time. if you don't hear from him well no loss to you - it's his loss.

Allison Blass said...

First of all, I lived in Hoboken, and had a car, and it was HELL. I eventually just kept the car at my office's garage (in East Rutherford) because I never, ever drove. I just to mass transit to work. If he lives in or around Hoboken (like J. City or something), and works in Manhattan, there is *no* reason for him to have car.

Second of all, CALM DOWN. Geez, it's not like you're going to be betrothed to the guy after one date. Yes, you don't want to put yourself in a position that's going to be pointless, but if he seems nice, then he probably is. That is the problem with us women - we read into everything! Maybe he's busy. If he does work in Manhattan (which EVERYONE in Hoboken does) then he's probably busy. It hasn't even been 48 hours. Calm down.

To be honest, Erik and I didn't even know where we were going to have dinner on our first date. We met at Grand Central Station and then picked a place to eat after that. And we met online. And I wasn't flirty or cute or whatever. I talked like myself. Because you know what? Flirty and cute only gets you so far. Eventually you're going to just be YOURSELF so you might as well start with that.

Seriously. Breathe for a second and don't take this so seriously! You will drive yourself NUTS!

Karen said...

I say don't cancel. Put yourself out of your comfort zone! Nothing ventured, nothing gained! Email him to find out the details.

Also, I have friends who hired a publicist to put together their Match profiles. So don't think you are the only one who has a hard time with that.

erin - heart in ireland said...

have fun with it is my advice and yea, there are a lot of interesting people out there, but go meet him and don't worry. i'm horrible with making specific plans - i'm usually like thursday night and then figure it out a bit closer of what to do.

online dating can be fun and i second whoever said try a few different sites - they are all very different.

Rachel said...

(Allison's comment about the car thing is accurate)

I say don't cancel, but...when I briefly delved into the online dating thing I had a guy who did the same thing he's doing and it drove me NUTS. Like, we had plans to meet for coffee after work, but no real defined time. He was like "why don't you just text me when you're in the area?" That made me feel as if he didn't value my time; like, I'd have to get to the area he wanted to meet and then WAIT for him to get there.

I don't have any advice, since I didn't do it for that long. I'd say drop him an email today, probably in the afternoon.