After much hemhawing I decided to join match.com and chemistry.com even though I hate online dating as much as George Clooney hates Facebook. I nearly signed up for it last week after I had one too many drinks. What stopped me in my uninhibited state? Someone, and I won’t name names, couldn’t figure out how to pay before she passed out for the evening. That’s right folks, she was too tipsy to hand over the credit card information. I woke up next to my laptop screen that was open. In hindsight I could’ve woken up next to worse things than a laptop with match.com on the screen. I suppose it’s better than the time I woke up next to an empty food container that had previously housed a burger and fries. YOU think YOU’VE rolled over and seen some weird things next to you after a night on the town? Nothing beats rolling over and feeling cardboard and thinking “what the…” and then opening your eyes only to see a giant, industrial size take out box staring at you accusingly as if to say, “really lard can? Did you really need to bring me home at 4 in the morning,” and you look back as if to say, “better you than someone with a pulse!”

So I thought it was some form of cosmic intervention that prevented me from sealing the deal with match and that would be that. I thought that until I received an email from match.com informing me that my picture had been approved and was posted. MY WHAT? Evidently, “someone” could upload a picture, but couldn’t find the “subscribe” button in her altered state. An email sent to a friend that day stated, “Oh dear God. I just received an email from match telling me that my posted picture has been approved. Clearly, the question of do I remember doing that would be rhetorical at this point. ”

A week later I decided to give match another shot even though I’m convinced it’s the land of booty calls and fat bald old men who think they’re Brad Pitt hot and can date women 20 years younger than them. I also decided to give Chemistry.com a shot since it’s for a more serious dater. I decided to join Chemistry even though 1.6 million of its members got rejected from eharmony, a fact which one of my matches boasted about. Um, if an internet dating site rejects you, it’s nothing to brag about dude. I joined because 80% of people I know in New York are on one if not multiple dating sites. I thought it would make me feel like I’m doing something slightly productive regarding dating and that I might meet new people other than the pendejos I’ve been meeting out at bars and because a guy friend of mine said, “I’m conviced that you can find more than booty off match, look at me I’m living proof.” He got married off of match, however, he conveniently forgot that he got married only after having many match booty filled year, so whatever grain of salt and all.

In the three days since I have joined I’ve considered dumping them both 1,000 times during the “cancellation period.” And chemistry.com has about 2 more hours to make something happen or I’m pulling the plug on it. I’ll save the sucky profiles I’ve seen, of which there are many, for another post (or multiple posts-I have a feeling I’m going to have fun with other people’s profiles…not in a cruel way, but in a “could this guy be any more arrogant way”). Needless to say, I’ve been tempted to break up because it is a lot of guys looking for tail on match and let’s just say chemistry isn’t setting my bunsen burner on fire.

However, nothing tempted me to break up with match.com than the email I received today in which I was told “SHE’S interested in you.” You’re one of HER “Daily Fives.” Excuse me? Did I become a lesbian overnight? Is match.com suggesting that I broaden my horizons and go all new millenium New York lesbian chic? Truth be told I once accidentally joined match.com as a lesbian. How does one accidentally become a match.com lesbiana, you ask? Oh, I don’t know, I was probably half in the bag when I decided to join and marked the wrong button (either that or I was half in the bag and had a really, really bad date and Freud was slipping in there). I got an email from someone and I thought “wow, he’s cute…tall, masculine, 29, great job, he’s a blonde and I’m not usually into blondes, but he’s cute enoguh” which was quickly followed by “hey wait a second…this is a woman. What the….how the…” Then I realized that I had chosen women looking for a women. Woopsee. My lesbonic experimentation “phase” lasted all of 15 minutes and then I went straight again after figuring out how to make myself hetero again. However, not being a lesbian, I emailed match today and asked them what their deal was with matching me up with girls, hello aren’t you supposed to be looking out for me? Aren’t you supposed to be telling me what guys are interested in me? For the record, match has yet to respond back to me. I might have to drop a dime and get the AG in on this!

There are days when I wake up loving this city just a little more than I usually do.  It’s like when I wake up feeling like it’s Valentine’s Day and New York is my Valentine who just gave me a giant princess cut diamond engagement ring (btw feel free to tell my future finance that’s the kind of ring I want).  My mood rarely changes on these days, even when I have momentary lapses of rage like when I’m at work and there’s a 30-90 minute period of time where I could rip my hair out (or better yet someone else’s) because someone is moving too slowly or is being incompetent or is just generally grating on my frazzled New York nerves!  Today was one of those insanely lovely New York days where even though I hadn’t slept more than 4 hours in two days due to the not so pleasant sound of garbage trucks repeatedly visiting the business across the street from me at all hours of the night making it impossible to sleep (seriously Bloomberg where’s your noise violation citations now?). Side note, when I first moved into my apartment I had apartment rage after about 3 sleepless nights of hearing the garbage trucks.  On the third night I reached my breaking point and threw open my window at 3 a.m. and yelled like some psychopath “MUST YOU BLOODY DO THIS NOW?  EVERY FREAKING NIGHT YOU’RE HERE.  IT’S NOT HUMANE!”  Just like the Madagascar penguins, the garbage man’s attitude was all “smile and wave boys, smile and wave,” because he just looked at the lunatic leaning out of the second floor window and then smiled and waved.  

 So, after two restless nights, I was hopped up on coffee (I was practically freebasing the stuff at one point) and I was walking to work and passed by an AMC TV pilot being filmed called Rubicon.  Although it wasn’t like seeing Don Draper on set, I still thought to myself how cool it is to live here.  Sure, sometimes we get so used to seeing things filmed in New York that we’re like “whatever, I’m hungover and late for brunch, I don’t care,” but it’s one of the things I try to still enjoy and try not to be jaded about (I’ll save the jaded part for dating).

Flash forward to three cups of coffee later and I’m willing myself to go to an international pro bono event that I had been excited to attend.  I took the 4 train and expected to be in Grand Central in no time.  Au contraire…I didn’t step off the train until an hour later.   I “may” have dosed off for 5-10 minutes after the train conductor announced that we were stuck in pergatory, i.e., between 28th Street and 42nd due to a sick passenger on the train ahead of us.  My memory flashed to an A.M.NY article that claimed that a lot train delays due to sick passengers are a result of skinny girls who starve themselves and passout on trains.  It was dinner time.  You do the math!  I wanted to point out to anyone who would listen that I hadn’t slept in 2 days, but I wasn’t screaming for a medic?  But it’s NY and no one cares, which is one of this city’s greatest attributes and greatest downfalls.  So I decided to shut my eyes and took a nap and I was awoken to a panhandler’s Comedy Central stand up routine in which he was impersonating the train conductor’s sick passenger announcement and the sound that the train doors make when closing.   Then he started saying he needed money/food for his kids, you know, the typical New York panhandling subway spiel (there’s another woman who has been riding the Lex line for years and who uses different names, sometimes she’s Andrea, sometimes she’s Colleen, but she’s always a widow with two kids who recently lost her job and always has a better manicure than I do and who once had the chutzpah to ask me if I could give her dollars in exchange for her panhandled change.  Do I look like Chase Bank lady?).  But here’s where Mr. Comedy Central does a weird thing…he whips out a picture of his “dead wife” wrapped in a ziplock bag and says, “this is my wife…I spoke to her on the phone on Easter, she hung up the phone and dropped dead.  Right there…she dropped dead.” Almost in the same breath, he turns to some white girl who gave him money and said, “Thanks white lady…you’re not bad for a white woman…you and me could go out and maybe get married and then create another little Obama.” Letting the “not bad for a white woman” comment slide for a moment, um, I thought you were the grieving widower?   While he was emptying people’s pockets, the subway started to move and I started thanking Jesus for getting this show on the road because it was taking all I had not to jump off at Grand Central and hail a cab back home and crawl into bed.  Unfortunately, we move all of 30 feet before the conductor got on the horn again and said, “so, um, yeah, we had a sick passenger on one of the trains ahead of us at Grand Central…they took her off and then the train directly in front of us had a woman on it that had a seizure.”  There was about a 3 second pause and then the entire train started laughing.  I even said to the guy next to me, who by the way was laughing like Santa Claus with a bowl full of jelly, that it’s unfortunate and we shouldn’t laugh, but it was funny.  And I thought about how all type-A most of us here are and how we can’t stand delays and then something like that causes all of us heartless bastards to have a collective laugh because seriously, what are the odds?  

I caught the eye of this hot latin guy at the end of the car (I was mid-car so no chance of conversing) and we started smiling and holding eye contact longer than is appropriate and then played the eye looking game for the rest of the trip (kinda made me think of the Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson Wedding Crashers church exchange about the, um, eye flirting).  When I exited the train at Grand Central I knew we would lock eyes again and when we did he waved bye.  I had considered staying on the train and continuing onto the UES with him, but that would’ve been awkward and stalkerish.  Side bar, I have got to come up with a plan of how to deal with these situations.  Maybe I’ll make up business cards to slip to hot guys like they do in the bars in the movies and say all sultry and suggestively, “call me.”  Speaking of movies, one thing that has bugged me is the filming of the first kiss between a couple…the “I’m not sure if we’re going to kiss, but we’ll both lean in and then pull out and lean in and pull out” kiss and then we’ll have the most amazing first kiss ever?  Has ANYONE ever had that happen?  I doubt it! It might be awkward and it might be bad, but it’s not that cliched first kiss thing.  Ok, off on a tangent again (sorry, lack of sleep)…so I got off at Grand Central and I ran smack dab into another camera crew.  It’s possible I’m going to end up in some random movie or tv show or SNL skit sometime in the future looking vaguely confused and extremely tired, but thankfully still tan. Anyway, moral of the story is even though it’s a chaotic and unpredictable place, there’s no place else I’d rather live.

After my last blog entry, a friend insisted that I visit Colombiancupid.com (a site that she “researched” before we headed off to Cartagena). I miss my UN diplomatic dating style of yore, so I decided to throw caution to the wind and logged on in the hopes of finding my media naranja (which for all you out there stuck in gringo land roughly translates into my other half, it’s a slang expression that’s all the rage in the Spanish speaking mundo).

Aye dios mio!  After reading some ads, I’m convinced I have a better chance of having a foreign affair at the International House of Pancakes or by way of celebrating the moments of my life with an international house coffee moment! I couldn’t help escape the feeling that I was dealing with some sort of illegal mail order bride scheme.  Take for instance Tony, who btw is “fond of Mexican food,” and prefers that his lady have “some spoken English.” I agree Tony, it helps if you both know the same language, it takes two to tango there papi.  My guess is the only Spanish Tony knows is chalupa.  The mail order bride feeling was further solidified when I noticed that they have English to Spanish translation software.  Proceed with caution amigos, things get lost in translation.  Just ask my Chilean friend Fernando, who wants “a sincere woman, that like him to do the sport, to have children and to do well together.”  WHAT does that even mean?

I was particularly unsettled by the fact that Jesus who is 41 and from Texas, not to be confused with Jesus 33 from Israel, is looking to marry someone young enough to be his daughter as he’s only interested in ladies who are 20-35.  And FYI, “Magic,” also a Texan, is “just as comfortable in shorts at the beach as in a tux at a formal.”  Really Magic?  Because I know that I’m sure as hell not as comfortable in a ball gown as I am in beachwear!   I mean does anyone in the movies ever say “let me slip into something more comfortable,” and don a tux?

29 year old Nicholas from Colombia (South Carolina that is), thinks he’s “very attractive” and is in search of a woman who is “good looking, hard working, and a giver.”  Can I get an amen from the ladies that it’s music to our ears when a man specifies that he wants a “giver”?  Reading between the lines here, Nico is looking for a maid or a sugar mamita who can afford one.

I suppose it’s not much of a shocker that the authentic and uber caliente Colombians live in Miami or nowheresville, FL.  The best looking one was 34 year old Juan from Miami who wants to date anything from a fetus (18…hola can someone say barely legal) to someone more age appropriate (37).   I’m tempted to ask What Would Jesus do in this situation, but I think we know (see Dallas Jesus above). Anyway, Juan is hot enough that I may be willing to overlook his potential pedophilia like tendencies. 

Perhaps my favorite posting was from Len in LA who writes, “Am I musical you ask? I can move a little bit. All my tan skinned friends steal my sh&t on the dance floor…it used to make me a little loco.”  Um, borderline racist profile!  And please no profanity, Juanes!

As of now, my best hope for global love is “Kenneth” my hot sounding and funny South African travel agent who I might use to book part of my SA trip.  I love him because he’s a straight shooting bloke who tells me what’s bollocks and what’s not.  Sorry Nico, but that’s the kinda man I like, one who takes care of ME, but at the same time doesn’t blow smoke u know where!  Seriously, the only smoke I want to see is the smoke billowing up from Victoria Falls.  Kenneth’s office is only two blocks away from mine so I might have to have an in-office consultation to discuss details.  He did suggest that I might enjoy having cocktails.  Ok, he said it in reference to the rest period on safari, but that’s a minor detail.

Maybe I will meet my international man of mystery in South Africa and be swept off my feet by his bastardized, yet irresistibly cute accent!  But seeing as how it has the highest HIV rate in the world, I think the only thing this Sheila will be kissing is my safari guide’s butt so as to ensure I don’t get eaten by a Lion.

Until then, I plan on doing my own “research” by going to rugby and cricket matches (btw, am I the only one who finds it extremely annoying that we’re the only former colony where those sports and high tea never caught on)?