Oct 01 2007
Warning: Objects May Be Older Than They Appear
Let’s go Old School:
…
And that’s why birds do it, bees do it
Even educated fleas do it
Let’s do it, let’s fall in love
…
I’m doing it, Jill is doing it
More people than you think are doin’ it..
So if you’re single, why don’t you do it…
The guy next door is doing it,
Yeah, guess what, your dad is doing it,
So if you’re single, why don’t you do it…
Yeah..why don’t you do it,
Join an online dating service..
Yeah, just do it!
Slap together a profile,
Dig out some old photo with a smile,
You know you want love
Or a reasonable fax-simile there of …
Just do it..just sign uuupppp!
Anyway, since Jill is giving online dating a shot, I thought I’d share what happened to my mom on her first couple of dates.
If you recall, she’s doing the online dating thing.
Phone conversation with Mom after her date with Guy One:
He was very late because he got lost.
Then when he showed up I didn’t recognize him. I mean, his photo had this guy with a brown beard.
I kept looking around for a guy with a brown beard. Then he introduces himself and there’s this guy in front of me with a white beard! Didja know that they looked like big fat white wires??
He wrote in his profile he was kind. He said he didn’t like sarcasm.
Well, you know how we had set up for me to call you so you’d know I was OK?
Well, since he was so late, I called you while he was there and you know what he said?
He said, “Why don’t you tell her you’re in my basement?”
I dunno. Sounds like sarcasm to me.
Phone conversation with Mom after her date with Guy Two:
So I meet him outside the restaurant and he has this big scar on his face.
He’s limping. Well, he leans in to give me a big hug – you remember how he was telling me he liked public displays of affection? But he’s got… something in the way.
Me: [I will not say anything...I will not respond...]
He’s got this stomach so I’m thinking maybe because of his limp he can’t exercise. So…okay.
We go into the restaurant and we’re kinda sitting in the back and it’s a bit dark. You know I like good lighting and I would rather have sat near the front where there was more light.
Anyway, I think he wanted it that way because it was so dark and HE’s dark so I couldn’t see him that well.
But.. I notice that he is keeping his hand over his mowf. I wonder why. Then I see that he has no front teef! I ask him about his teef. He said they got knocked out at a basketball game a few weeks ago and his jaw is too swollen to get a bridge.
He looked so different from his photo and I hadn’t wanted to ask how old his photo was after having that one guy get rude on me but I, you know, circle around it and I find out his photo is…over 30 years old!
I’m telling you, enough of these old guys.
Fuhgettabout it! They’re no fun!
I wanted to date “age appropriate men” but they are just so old!
Time for the younger guys! Granny did it. I used to do it.
I’m gonna do it again.
Remember: It Runs In The Maternal Line.
YOU should do it, too.
Me: Uh…well, whatever makes you happy.
So, men in their mid-40s are winking at mom who’s sixty-six and men in their mid-50s are winking at her daughter.
Huh.
Go figure.
I’m 42. Most of the men I know around my age look fit and healthy. They look their age or perhaps younger. When it comes to online profiles, I was puzzled at why many of the men in their mid to late 40s looked well, older. Like as much as 15 years older.
A male friend clued me in: These guys are lying about their age.
hhh. Doh!
I’m not getting why. I mean, it’s not like you won’t find out when you meet them.
But it seems to go both ways. Men have told me that women will post much younger photos of themselves and then they’ll meet and the guy is thinking…whaa???
So…just a word of online dating caution: Objects May Be Older Than They Appear
This means: Less hair, fewer teeth, more fat, more wrinkles.
Let’s fall in love…a few years later
…
Let’s fall in love
Why shouldn’t we fall in love?
Now is the time for it, while we are young
Let’s fall in love.
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Note: Thought you might enjoy the contrast between Alanis Morissette singing Cole Porter and Diana Krall singing a song written a few years later by Ted Koehler and Harold Arlen.
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Your mother is a trooper. I don’t care who you are if your teeth are missing in the front you get no love. She should have left the moment his hand was removed from the front of his mouth.
Why didn’t dude wait until he got a replacement? Even if it would take some time, first impressions are everything.
Dating is a crazy beast worth taming, if you find someone fun. But OMG… NO!!!
Oh my… wow. I can’t believe people think they can get away with that! I know I really shouldn’t be, but I’m surprised.
UT: My mom has a sense of humor! When she was telling me about the guy with no front “teef” (she can’t pronounce “th” that well) it was like the guy had one think after the other that didn’t add up.
She kept saying, “Well, it makes me wonder what else he’s left out…I mean, he’s not all that … accurate…” The fact that his online photo is over 30 years old was what got her. I saw the photo and it was a bit fuzzy (probably scanned in what with it being taken before digital photography!) but not so unrealistically dated looking that you realized it was an old photo.
Sue: I have no idea what kind of thinking goes into lying about your age. Some guys will state on their profile that they are really older but that that they look younger (usually this is true when they do this, at least based on the photos) and that they are putting a younger age so that they”ll show up in the searches (like my searching for men in age range 37-47).
One guy I met gave a sigh of relief when he saw me. It seemed he had a met a few women who had really old photos and I looked like…me.
I tried eHarmony once. I’d gotten an e-mail ad so I finall decided to do it. I fill in the profile. It does it’s thing. Instead of coming up with matches, it tells me to zark off.
:-O Okay, it really didn’t say zark off. it was much nicer, but said in some mumbo jumbo that they couldn’t match me. not that they couldn’t match me anyone in the system right now. No, that they couldn’t match my personality. period. Zark off. Go directly some other site. Do not pass go. Do not collect a date. Zark off.
Sweet. If anyone watches me when I’m watching TV, they might wonder why I flip off the eHarmony commercials, but you folks now know.
ack: I’ve heard that eHarmony rejects many people! Stuff I’ve read said that if you didn’t have some type of religion marked you’d get rejected. Dunno. I *think* it was eHarmony (it had to be a big site) where this friend’s younger sister got rejected because …. she didn’t have enough dating experience – or something. I guess they don’t want uh, virgins? Not sure.
Anyway, the big thing is that I’ve heard that eHarmony rejects people. I *have* heard anecdotal evidence of people meeting and marrying via Match.com! I mean friend-of-a-friend stories.
Your story is just one more for my “no eHarmony” bucket. I think they are $$$$$ and have some long questionnaire. Zzzzzz.
When I’ve run out of regular stuff to worry about with the whole online dating thing, I sometimes wonder how long it will take *my* pictures to expire! I like the ones I’ve got, but I am almost ALWAYS the one behind the camera, never in front of it.
I have one that a dad of one of my Sunday school kids took for me last year. He’s a professional photographer but that picture will be a year old in December. The other 3 are five months old or less and totally candid, but I doubt I could get pictures like those again either. Guess I won’t worry about it quite yet though – at least they’re not THIRTY years old!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Egads!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That’s weird about eHarmony! I imagine my profile would be totally unacceptable…except, I do have a religion. Still, probably no category for beer drinking Sunday school teachers (which reminds me, I never did that Geek Train one!!!!!!!!) :-0 :-0 :-0
Jill: I noticed that many people will state “photos taken when I was in Hawaii June 2003…” stuff like that. Probably those who’ve had the “So how recent is your photo” question!
You could get your kids to take photos of you. The type of photos you use certain will act as a “filter” for men! I’ve had conservative shots and the age of men who contact me shoots up (like 25+ years older) and when I put a mean/scary photo up just for chuckles, the age of the men who contacted me went down. It was an inneresting experiment. Now I just have a variety – casual, dressed up and one that I thought was cute and maybe a little sexy but one male friend said, “Whoooooaaaaa HOT”
Well, you just never know.
Beer-drinking Sunday school teachers and eHarmony? Who knows? You may be EXACTLY what they’re looking for!
part of the reason i went for it with eHarmony was that it was a free communication weekend. so, no $$$ to shell out. unfortuantely, i didn’t meet anyone either, but i suppose it’s better that all it cost me was some time. (rather than time *and* $$$’s.)
coulda been anything, but the religion comment might have meant i was hosed from the get-go. (your basic agnostic here.)
MsQ: where’s the hot pic for us?