Rating: NNNNN
Two e-mails popped into my in-box just now. One is an engagement announcement from a friend. She has found true love. The other is from “PezPenz,” my current Internet romantic interest. I’m hoping for true love.I like PezPenz. I like that he sends little “smiles” saying I seem cute when, unbeknownst to him, I’m sitting unkempt in my pyjamas. I might not even have brushed my teeth yet.
He likes me no matter what. I think this relationship will work out just fine. It’s virtually perfect. But only virtually.
In real life I’m addicted to this process of clicking, messaging and flirting online, and it’s hindering, not helping, my social life. Sometimes I don’t go out on weekends just so I can curl up with a glass of wine and my computer.
It all started with NiceGuy77.
I fell in love with NiceGuy77.
While all the other profiles online described height, weight and ability to cuddle and watch movies (and since when did that become a prerequisite for quality dates?), NiceGuy77 was “looking for the right pair of eyes.”
I was all eyes.
So began a two-week-long correspondence, my innermost romantic urges seeping into my every thought.
Like lovers torn apart by circumstance, we wrote of art and philosophy and the meaning of life — until, that is, we met.
It was immediately apparent at the restaurant where NiceGuy77 was waiting for me that this wasn’t the NiceGuy77 I was waiting for.
I thought he’d be taller. I thought he’d stand straighter. I thought he’d gaze into my eyes longer. He did not pull at the heartstrings I had readied for him.
I left in a tangle of confusion.
I wanted to go home and check my e-mail to see if the latest sweet somethings from NiceGuy77 had arrived. I wanted to tell NiceGuy77 about the horrid date I’d just been on.
But then it struck me. I was in love with someone I had made up in my own imagination. I will never meet my NiceGuy77.
Luckily, there’s nothing like the Internet to fill your rebound needs.
There are 742 guys online at any given moment within a few miles of my postal code. Seven hundred and forty two hunks available for me to choose from.
Actually, only 741 after my latest e-mail blowout.
It occurred as I was cruising online one night, scanning pictures, reading profiles and attributing all my favourite personality traits to the static images. The night seemed full of potential.
Suddenly, an instant message from Windsong2window popped up.
“Hi. I saw your ad. Maybe you can look at mine. My pic is out front. Can I see yours?”
Live interaction is better than stagnant scanning, so after a quick glance at his pic and profile, I wrote back. Two lines were exchanged between us before things got nasty.
“I’m just a little unclear as to some of the things you have done. Hmm,” he wrote.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I’m just looking at my notes, and you ignored me before I posted the pic. Seems a little shallow,” he fired back.
Notes! I don’t even remember being in contact with this guy before.
“It’s a little shallow for you to assume that,” came my retort. “How do you know what I was doing at the time? I could have been talking to someone else.”
“Well you never got back to me.”
“Well, since you are being judgmental, I will be, too. Do you really think your pic makes that much of a difference?”
“It did to you.”
At this point, my hands were shaking and my palms sweating. I don’t fight with people in real life, not like this.
I know I could have just logged off, but I couldn’t stop myself. I needed to know how this was going to end.
“You would find me very attractive physically, you would like my money and lifestyle, but never me,” he boasted.
“You have no idea what I find attractive, and it certainly isn’t your attitude,” I snapped.
“Ya. Well, my attitude is comensurate (sic) with having concluded that your (sic) an idiot some time ago.”
“Well, at least I can spell. Ciao.”
With that, I was out.
My heart racing, I turned off my computer and sat in the quiet of my bedroom. I took a quick, embarrassed look around to make sure nothing around me had changed. I was alone.
That’s the crux of the problem, it seems to me now. No matter how many e-boyfriends I have, I am alone for all the good times and the bad.
PezPenz and I are going to meet for coffee.
But part of me wants to put it off, just so I can continue receiving his refreshing messages that break up my mundane day and send my mind wandering.
