ADVENTURES IN ONLINE DATING PART 2: BEYOND THUNDERDOME

So in my last post, I spoke of joining a few dating websites in an effort to develop a new relationship show for the production company where I work. But there turned out to be unexpected consequences.

As soon as I put a profile up, women Winked™ at me, they Flirted™ with me, and they emailed me. I had gone online for work research and ended up becoming a gazelle hunted by lions.

The first woman to email me was a 40-something cougar. Scary for a whole host of reasons, not the least of which was that she told me that the number "420" in her username was not a marijuana reference but rather her ex-husband's birthdate.

"Oh," she added, "And Hitler's too." Again — the user name which she chose contained Hitler's birthdate.

I think she'd do gangbusters over on JDate.



Below: "...and the award for Most Bizarre Opening Sentence On A Dating Profile goes to..."

Oh, that old category.

One girl turned out to be a Facebook friend of my friend Jerry, so I emailed him to find out what this girl's deal was. Turns out she has a kind of Sex In The City blog; each guy she dates gets a nickname and a catty little story. I didn't go out with that one. I can't stand assholes with blogs who nickname people.

Anyway, next was Perfect On Paper Girl.

She's a gorgeous 29-year-old who went to UCLA and listed Curb Your Enthusiasm as her favorite TV show. And not only does she not want children, her name actually means that in Korean. (Her mom had three girls in four years and then said "No more!" So she named daughter #3 "No More Children.") Perfect On Paper Girl was perfect on paper, but in person I wasn't quite feeling it.





Fashion House Girl seemed really pretty & interesting, and Mortgage Girl was cute & funny. Both got derailed somehow.

I just didn't get Girl Who Said She Liked Jazz But Didn't Like Jazz At All.

Getting hit on by Bikini Girl was extremely flattering.

And as pretty and cool as Girl Who Had The Same Name As My Sister was, I just couldn't go through with it. Because, well... she had the same name as my sister.


I was pursued by several women over 35 who could not hide their desperation to bear children as soon as possible... I could acutely sense that I was being sized up by each woman not as a date but as the father of the unborn child that has been gestating in her brain for a decade.

Joyless Jewess was a real letdown. Didn't smile, didn't laugh. The only time she got remotely animated was when she gave me a full-series rundown of her favorite television show, Sin Tetas No Hay Paraíso, a Spanish-language telenovela whose title translates into "Without Breasts, There Is No Paradise."

To entertain myself on that date, I decided to play a game called How Many Times Can I Say The Word "Rape" Until She Will End This Date? It wasn't easy to work the word "rape" into the conversation, but that was the fun of it. (By the way, the answer is 2.)

So I let all my subscriptions expire; with no plans to renew them. It was a very enlightening — and in some ways bizarre — experiment. And I developed several television formats based on what I learned. Perhaps one of them might end up on TV one of these days.

Oh - and I did meet one nice girl after all. She's pretty (Prom Queen 1994), she's tall (5'10"... and it turns out that I'm not 5'10" after all), and she's smart. Which is a good thing, because if this turns into something, I'm going to need help coming up with a story about how we met. Because seriously... the internet?