Okay, I don't have any idea if I'm, to use the popular term, 'ready to date.' It's not like I'm lonesome, or like I have a huge hole in my life that I need someone to fill. But when I was last 'single,' I dated all the time. It was like breathing, nothing I put an effort into. I went and did the things I wanted to go and do, and I invited girls along based on whether I thought they were interesting, cute, or best of all, sexually irresponsible.
And I figure if I wait until I’m lonesome or have a huge hole in my life to try and meet anyone, I’ll do something dumb like seeing if any of those irresponsible chicks are still out there.
Of course, there was a huge advantage to being compelled to spend seven hours a day in the midst of 500 single girls roughly my age, girls who were mostly dying for any distraction from the class.
Another thing about that whole scene: when I was 17, high school girls were, basically, women. They had boobs, wore makeup, and none of them looked like children playing dress-up. I swear. I'm not interested in dating someone half my age, but when was it they quit stocking high schools with women and started putting these children in there? I'm off topic, but it's a real concern. If they keep it up, one of these days my own kids will be allowed to drive cars or something.
So being that I'm not in high school any longer, and that it apparently wouldn't matter since the hot chicks I went to high school with are now in their 30s, I decided to do something about meeting women. Women I could actually date if I had a life. Because the part about going to the things I want to, I don't really do that anymore either. I'm going to Hayseed Dixie at Davey's on Friday, and that's the closest thing to 'going out' in the sense of something I could theoretically take a date to, that I've accounted for since November.
I saw 'Shopgirl' alone in the theater and stopped off for a beer at a dive which has, as its main selling point, a collection of riff-raff who tell outlandish stories in the first person. Not exactly a date, but I was still married.
So anyway, interspersed here in my rant about dating are the pictures I posted to an online personals listing. It's as unpromising as it is inexpensive, but it beats at least one alternative:
I got a telephone solicitation from a brick-and-mortar dating service, went and heard their dog and pony show. It was just timing, their auto-dialers got me right around when I was curious. Except they really push the fact that their members are hot to get married, and since my divorce isn't even final, I'm thinking more like meeting to eat a bunch of caramels, no pressure.
I knew the fees would be high, someone has to pay the rent. I figured I'd find out what the deal cost, keep it in mind for someday and maybe. I was thinking they might charge as much as$50 or $100 a month, which is about $250 to $300 more than I can afford.
There was a questionnaire, a video, a pitch. They even had me pull up a couple of profiles on their database, to see that there were women there I'd want to meet. And there even was one, except when they finally got around to the money part, yikes.
The cheapest plan they had was $3000 if I was stupid enough to sign on the spot. Plus $30 a month. That was for a membership that would expire in a year. If you wanted to be able to continue past the year at ONLY $30 a month, they wanted another $700. For $3700 right this minute and $30 a month, you can keep using the service until you get married.
But there's more!
If you really want to blow a wad of cash, you can sign up for almost $6,000. For that, you get to keep paying $30 a month until you're married, and if that spouse dies or divorces you, you can renew for 'only' the monthly fee! How big a pessimist do you have to be to opt for that???
Oh, the $6,000 package comes with a cruise. A cruise I'm reasonably sure I could book for myself for about $1500.
So what kind of women would you meet through a service like that? Women serious enough about getting married to pay $3700 in hopes of meeting potential husbands? I'm not only not that motivated myself, I'm pretty sure I don't want to go on a date with anyone who is.
And no, I don’t think paying a fee like that proves she has substance, if I recall the term my ‘counselor’ used. I think women with substantial bank accounts mainly have them because they’re smarter than to shell out that kind of money.
Plus, at least one of the online places I’ve seen charges for guys but not for girls: they let the girls in free, ladies’ night style. So for all I know the women at this place see a price list that’s maybe 10% what I was pitched.
Oh, and annoying sales tactic: the prices they show are all $1000 higher than this. The claim is that it's $4700 if you sign up later, but by joining right this fucking minute, you save $1000.
Anyway, when I balked at the price (my 'counselor' didn't know I wasn't even willing to shell out $50/mo with no up front fee), she started trying to get me to finance the deal with them. $200 down and $125 a month (probably at credit card interest rates, probably until my second or third spouse dies or leaves me).
I hate high pressure sales tactics. In part because I have the urge to cave, I'm too damn nice. I don't cave, though, I sit there saying no and feeling awful about it, so then I get pissed at them for making me feel bad. And then I'm definitely not buying because I'd have felt awful for nothing.
I thought I'd found an out, told the lady that I hadn't even figured out the refi on my house, so I definitely wasn't in the market for a high-priced introduction service. I said I'd make a poor prospective husband if my house was foreclosed on because I'd put myself $125 a month out of my price range for my own residence.
"That is a great idea," my 'counselor' said.
"It is?"
"You could have your mortgage lender fold this into the mortgage. It wouldn't affect your payment more than probably $20 a month, you'd have the service and your house payment where you need it. That's a great idea. If you can put $200 down, I'm pretty sure I can work it so the rest could be done when you close. That way you don't lose your $1000."
Hello? That was not my idea. And I wouldn't be 'losing' $1000 by walking out: I've seen that trick before. If I can get something for $3700 today, I can probably get it for half that if I hold out. If I even want it, but my idea was to get out of there without being rude. Why was I worried about being rude???
"Have you gotten that high-pressure tactics don't work on me?" I finally asked. "You weren't gong to get $200 out of me today if that paid for the whole thing. You wouldn't have gotten $50. At this point I wouldn't give you $2."
She reminded me of the asshole at a Ford dealership who did everything but stand on his head and spit nickels to ‘counsel’ me into a mini-van I didn’t want and couldn’t afford.
So far, the far cheaper alternative has produced approximately zero leads. I've e-mailed a few women. Their profiles appear non-toxic, though I guess you have to assume a certain amount of outrageous lying, posting pictures of a much cuter sibling/daughter, or using a high school yearbook shot from 1985. The only one that e-mailed me back was with quick note that she'd met someone and was seeing how it worked out. It might have boosted my confidence if she'd said she met someone through this service, but I'm doubting it.
But maybe it's my pictures, which is why I've salted them through this post. I'm relying on the three readers of this blog, (well, two since one of them is my ex) to tell me if it's my pics that are doing me in. I tried to get decent looking, relatively current shots (including some I took for the purpose) while presenting myself honestly.
Is it the honesty that's dooming me? If everyone assumes a certain degree of image inflation, photo doctoring and outright deception, maybe they figure me to be a real cave troll who only looks human after extensive Photoshop work...
Also, this bar scene everyone is so burned out on. Where is it? And how do you tell a pick-up bar from one that just serves alcoholic beverages?
1 comment:
The cheapest plan they had was $3000 if I was stupid enough to sign on the spot. Plus $30 a month. That was for a membership that would expire in a year.
For that kind of money, which seems like it’s more an agency than a site that posts your picture and accesses you to other’s emails, I want someone to go around with me and if I see a girl I want to talk to -like in grade school- I tell the agent, “go talk to her for me”.
And for such a service it shouldn’t take no bloody year (or more).
As for photos, well, as a fellow bearded, long haired chap (my beard is down to spring levels now that the weather has turned) I can tell you that, for me, I believe it’s the kiss of death. It’s just so contrast to what many think is ‘beautiful’ or whatever. Granted those are not the types of women I (and I would think you) look for. But still.
For myself I think I’m more the nice guy once you get to know him. I’m the ‘alternative’ (statically most of my acquaintances have been -ahem- married women or ‘attached’ women). The different. The guy that doesn’t look like Al Pacino in Serpico when you first see him, but then does when she has to alter the physical bit in her head so that I’m at least vaguely physically attractive. Or something.
But the bottom line is: this is me.
Could I shave my beard off and go get some GQ haircut to try to seem more fetching? Yes, maybe. But it’s not me.
Just as I doubt you want to see some photo of (trying to think of some kind of feminine equivalent) a girl that went all out with model-like photography and hairstyle but then when you meet her she never wears makeup and says, “I only did that for the photo”.
Just be you.
And possibly withhold the pirate photo until the third email :P
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