One of the reasons we created Seeking Simone was to tell
some of the heartbreaking, heartwarming and hilarious online dating
stories that we'd experienced ourselves or heard from friends of all
sexual orientations. Now we want to hear yours!
We promise we won't rip it off for the show.
In the spirit of kicking things off, I thought I'd tell MY online dating story (singular). Because, as we learn about Audrey in Episode 2, my first online date was my last. I got gay married and everything. And yet I still like to give unsolicited dating advice.
Here's the tale of my online dating, U-Haul lesbian shack up.
"So, how did you two meet?"
I never tire of telling the story of how I found Kate.
My friend S and I had recently made a pact that if we were still single by July 27th, 2003 (it's important to set deadlines for love, people), we’d look into this newfangled online dating thing.
So one long weekend in May, my roommate
was out of town and I was up at 1:00 a.m., noodling around online, reading the recaps for
The Bachelor on Television Without Pity (Andrew Firestone, if you're curious).
Now, as some of you long-time TWOP fans may recall, they used to have Spring Street Personals (the same as on The Onion and Nerve)
on there, before TWOP went all Yahoo. And so, to prepare myself for
the upcoming online dating challenge, I did a search for lesbians of
Toronto. You know - to see what I had to look forward too!
Most of the young ladies “had cats”, “loved camping” or had user
names like “camping cat-lover”. I'm allergic to cats and hate camping and I'm not going to lie - things weren't looking good for me.
I had almost given up by the time I got to the end of the page of ads, but
clicked on the last one anyway. As I scanned the page, the answer to
“What's the last great book you read?” popped out at me. She had
written: “For some reason, every summer I have to reread Microserfs.
Very geeky.”
I was transfixed. I LOVE Microserfs. I read further and even though her ad
included a mention of cats and also the outdoors, by the time I’d
finished reading through the whole thing, I was not so much transfixed
as transformed.
I remember sitting wide-eyed, shaking and blushing furiously alone in that dark room, hearing my heart beating in my ears and thinking “That’s her. That’s my girlfriend. If I can just convince HER of that, we can get this thing going!! Yeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaah!!"
I spent my entire Sunday painstakingly crafting a personal ad that I hoped would appeal to her. And then I spent $25US to buy "credits" so that I could e-mail her. And then I spent most of the night painstakingly crafting the e-mail that I would send. And then I sent it. And I am happy to say that it was the best $25US and 36 hours I ever invested.
Kate emailed me back, kicking off an almost six week email/snail mail/phone frenzy. Because even though we were in the same city, we literally didn't have time to meet in person for nearly six weeks. And then we went on a date. And on the second date, I showed up at her place and NEVER LEFT.
It was all very romantic.
In the beginning, I agreed with everyone’s advice that I shouldn’t put all my eggs in one basket – but secretly, I was already tucking into a delicious omelette I’d made from those eggs and picking my teeth with the basket straw. Sure, I figured Kate and I have the same challenges and misunderstandings and ups and downs and thrills and spills of any relationship, but I also knew that my soul had recognized hers that night and somehow it would all turn out well. And I was RIGHT. HA ha!!
As an addendum - my friend S also met a young lady (offine) before our action plan deadline. But she, unfortunately, did not fare as well as I. I ran into her ex-girlfriend a couple of months ago and had the extremely uncomfortable experience of not remembering her real name - but DEFINITELY remembering the mean nickname I had invented for her. Which was "Boozehound".
HA! great, funny story! thanks for sharing it :-)
Posted by: clik scribe | July 09, 2009 at 07:15 AM