mardi, mars 16, 2010

Cotton Candy Love Emporium

A week or two ago I got off the paid dating site, and signed up with the free one, OKCupid. If Match was kind of a motley crew, OKCupid is more like a Roman bachannal. In fact, I believe was the Greeks who did bachannals -- but those Roman folks knew how to party like it was 99.

It's fine to be a married guy or woman trolling for sex and love on OKCupid. Then there is the folk who call themselves available -- which can cover pretty much everything. Of course, the site also takes personal ads from bisexuals...I suppose, if you were a straight guy looking for a gay woman, you could find her here, also.

No secret that I am an egghead, a middle-aged woman, and definitely not in the hot babe category. So to find myself the object of unremitting male attention puzzles me a little bit. I don't understand why I'm being messaged by 30 year olds -- wouldn't they be happier with women closer to their own age? Of course, guys have been dating younger women for centuries without asking that question.

Unsophisticated moi, it still feels a little peculiar when guys I've never met ask me whether I'm dominant in the bedroom. Or want to have internet sex without having touched more than a cold screen and viewed my picture. At that point, I make myself invisible -- close the hall of mirrors, send the circus home.


It feels to me like a vast banquet -- where, if one seeks to take a sip or a bite, the food and wine is yanked out of reach. And when it comes to exploring love, or maybe even lust, we seem more greedy than smart.

So yes, I've been propositioned -- a lot, as I mentioned to the married guy who wanted advice from me -- and then accused me of thinking I knew the answers. I don't even take it personally anymore -- watching men and women in heat can be like viewing dogs rut.

If this is Cupid's idea of love, maybe he should hang on to those arrows! And yet, I do beleive, that in this group of revelers, there are a few souls as lost as I am. If we are fortunate, maybe we will find one another.

OKCupid is nothing more than American culture, with its so-called liberty, under the microscope. What does it say about our culture that we are lost in a sea of choices and yet can find nothing to nourish us?



Picture by David Shankbone under Creative Commons License on Wikimedia Commons.

3 commentaires:

dadshouse a dit…

Online dating sucks completely. Doesn't matter if it's OKCUpid, match, eharmony, chemistry, craigs. It blows!

Go sit in a coffee house with a good book, and bat your eyelashes while you're not reading it. A book is a great conversation piece, especially if it's something some guy had a chance in hell of reading. (Maybe pick a book that's already a movie)

I prefer meeting women in real life!!!

But I do enjoy your carnival story.

norman pease a dit…

at the risk of being redundant, I think the reason there is no nourishment to online dating is that it is too easy to be selfish. Few (if any) approach a relationship from the standpoint of "what can I bring?" rather than "what can I get?" You could try going the other way....the "in person" dating matchmakers. It seemed to me the process was pretty good, though I could not afford the fees:)

BigLittleWolf a dit…

It does suck. I agree with DM. On the other hand, you occasionally meet some very nice people.

Part of the problem is the "fast food" consumptive nature of it all, and, um, the bold-faced lies. And I don't mean the obvious tweaks to this or that. So yes, America in a microcosm. Especially in these days of searching for the quick fix.

DM's idea is a good one. And believe it or not, airports used to be great places to meet interesting people. These days? Don't know.