Internet Dating????

Oh, Lord help me!  I have dipped my toe into the world of online dating and now I feel all slimy.  I went to a website called "okcupid" and signed myself up, after MUCH tearing of hair and gnashing of teeth... and that was just to figure out my screen name... :)

Let me just say that it is an interesting experiment in human interaction through a completely dehumanized setup.  You pick your user name (and some of them are some real doozies... "adessotoccame" - which means "touch me now" in Italian, is just one of the more note-worthy...) fill out your profile, and maybe post a few pics if you want.  I chose to mis-spell the Italian words for "green eyes" (occhi verdi in Italian, but I wrote occiverde, which is mispelled AND mixing Spanish in there...) as my user name and chose a rather blurry photo of me in St. Peters.  I didn't pick that one to be tricky or anything -- I actually like the photo!  

Then, I added a photo of me in front of the Colliseum and started answering some of the questions that fill out your personality profile.  WOW!  Who in the WORLD comes up with these questions?  (Perhaps I would have been better going with a more white-bread site like match.com or eharmony, but I knew those sites are based in the US, and I won't be there for two more years. )  Some of the questions are deeply personal and quite kinky.  Others are inane and quite frankly bored me.  How this is supposed to match me up with that "special someone", I haven't a clue!

Sooo, I went final with my profile, and started surfing the site (trolling).  Within a day, I had several emails from other members and was responding to some of them.  (Many times, I get emails completely in Italian.  Since my profile is written completely in English, and I state clearly that I speak Italian "poorly" I don't usually respond to those...)  One fellow in particular seemed pretty nice, and our profiles seemed to match up rather well.  We exchanged a few emails back and forth, and then he pops out with, "So, how often in the week are you available for sex?"  Well, after I picked my jaw up off the floor, I immediately blocked and deleted him.  I had to give him points for his honestly, but REALLY???  Who SAYS that??

Unfortunately, I'm very much a chicken when it comes to this online dating thing.  I do not like the idea of picking someone from a lineup (essentially) and then meeting them for drinks / dinner / what-have-you.  Who KNOWS what kind of person you might meet?  The trouble is that my loneliness is kicking my cowardice in the buttinsky these days.  

Of course, that leads to a completely different set of complications.  As a single mom, I often find myself struggling to fit everything into my day / week for myself and my son.  How do I find the time to squeeze someone else into that equation?  Sigh...