Reason # 45834598 why internet dating sucks

I have a confession to make, a confession that I have not been able to make to myself until I was so confronted with the evidence and all that I have left is the truth. And pictures do not lie.

I was fat in college.

Like double chin and wear sweat pants all the time, fat. So fat, that my dad used to poke my belly and tell me that I should lay off the beer. And as I grew bigger, the hott 19 year old who used to be the biggest cock tease in NYC, who could make any guy buy her a drink and then ravish me against the wall at some dirty club, disappeared. Instead, in her place was this not so confident, sweet-ish, girl who couldn’t get hot guy ass…unless he was incredibly drunk. And then he still wasn’t cute.

Today, weight loss, a missing chin, darker hair, and my bitchy confident streak newly found. But I feel that I am at an impass, I have reached the age where all of my friends are hooking up, finding Mr. Right and I think I need to also find him. It’s like living on a block when everyone is getting a brand new car. You never thought to get one until everyone else got one. Hell, you don’t even want the new car! You are happy with the old one…a lot like me and my singlehood. So, like all people who are ambivalent about finding Mr./Ms. Right, I am looking on the internet personals. 1 Date, no commitment and then I can bitch and say that I “really tried.”

As I may have previously wrote, I answered an ad posted about the movie Secretary. Keep in mind I was brought up Catholic with some Jewish guilt thrown in. Now, when I answered this post…I thought that I was answering an ad for a guy who was assertive, maybe some lite tying up in bed…shit that I go for. If you are a man, treat me like I am your woman…IN BED. Well, I rent the movie this weekend and see that the movie was NOTHING like my benign thoughts. It is a full on S&M flick! Spanking and peeing oneself and all!!!

Not knowing that I was getting myself into, we begin to email back and forth and we decide to meet (Yes, I know, I live to entertain my readers), so I (very cutely and cleverly) ask him “The million dollar question. After work drinks or coffee?” He responds…and I shit you not, “I have decided that we will meet at a café. The village has some great ones, I’ll pick out a place and tell you where to meet me.”

Wait a fucking min. pal.

First you tell me where to meet you, next thing I’ll be high on roofies, chained to your bed barking like a dog hoping that you let me go to the bathroom. Let’s get some shit straight. First, I am the oldest of 4 kids, I do not take orders, I gave them growing up. Secondly, my father, who could perhaps dwarf any man in the wannabe machismo category (he made bar fights cool in his day—fuck, the man still gets into them and they aren’t even cool anymore) has learned to never tell me what to do. Perhaps it is because my mother had all 4 of us in a row and I am a little rebellious, but my father has learned as all other people in my life have, if you want me to do something…you tell me to do the opposite. “Bangladesh Shannon?! Sounds great!!” And I would not have gone.

And as we IM…I have to ask him point blank…”So how tall r u?!” Well let me backtrack. I ask him how tall he is b/c it comes out that he is Jewish…and we now the male population of my species have a small height problem. Pun intended. It comes out that he is 5’7-ish. I ask him what the “–ish” means. He replies “–ish”…In the ad it said that he is AVERAGE HEIGHT. Do I need to bust out the fucking US census or whatever tracks that shit to show him that the average height for a male is like 5’10?!? Keep in mind that I am 5’6 and I routinely wear ‘come-fuck-me-heels’ that are at lease 3 inches high.

Of course it is a short Jewish guy who gets off dominating some chick, I mean what else does a short Jewish guy dominate? His mom yells at him, his boss yells at him, and to boot he is too short to make it with any women at a bar. After the height revelation, I told him about the 2 paths to Shannon. Path 1 is Advertising and then PhD and Path 2 is stand-up comedy and writing. And he was like, “Get out! Me too!!” Of fucking course pal, you are a Jew! All of our people want to either become scholars or stand up comedians.

He better be paying for our coffee, and not because I have a sense of entitlement, because that has been established a very long time ago. Men should always pay because of this one simple fact…fuck the Cosmo excuse “because women pay so much for their appearance”, because men do too and I rarely do but still expect to be treated…Men, you are forever destined to pay for our drinks/dinners/vacations to Greece/whatever we desire because, WE WILL BE CARRYING YOUR CHILDREN ONE DAY. And if it isn’t yours’ then it is some asshole friend of yours’. Each time you take a woman out, you are paying a sin tax for the time where your wife/baby’s momma can’t drink, smoke, do drugs, not have sex in the 9th month of pregnancy/carry around 25lbs of extra weight…I could go on.

So my stance on internet dating?! I work with numbers so let’s employ the same analysis that I would for a client. Let’s examine my return on investment (ROI).

Manicure: $13
Pedicure: $20
Eyebrows: $12
Hours in painful heels that make my legs look hot and my ass like a porn star’s: 4
Days can’t have ice cream or other sinfully delicious food: 14
Hours I need to spend exercising at 7am this week: 5

Let’s see what I will get out of it: a short Jewish guy who mis-represented himself and is trying to tell me what to do and when I call him out on it, defers to me like all the pansy ass guys…

The whole dom/sub thing…people who want assertiveness/to be assertive in the bedroom… It’s because the bedroom is where you can act out your fantasy. You are with a partner who either loves you or is being paid to be understanding and that allows you to escape all of the societal constraints that force you to be who you are on a daily basis. My neurotic, first-born, overly charming and getting my way, seven sister educated pompous nature makes me more submissive. I like it when someone calls me out on my shit and throws me up against the wall. You have to be careful about the men who like to be dominant because that is an indication that there is something w/i the societal construct (yes, I know I studied social theory) that does not allow them to dominate, i.e. HEIGHT! A pencil pushing job! Acting like a lacky in all aspects of their life!

Fuck it! Fuck internet dating! Fuck dating in general! I am concentrating on my writing, my desire to go into stand-up (I’ll post where I will be performing, PLEASE SEE ME…but don’t stalk me), and trying to pay my way with my 9-6 lowest man on the totem pole job and trying to get into Columbia (again)…

As much as I kid around about my disaster dating stories, I am just scared that I will never meet anyone for me. As everyone ascends up the metaphocial Noah’s Ark 2 by 2, I ask myself, “Will I always be second mate on Big Gay Al’s cruise ship?”