Members who post pictures are a zillion times more likely to get winked at then those who don’t. Post your pictures today to increase your chances of being winked at!!
Well duuuh they’re more likely. I mean getting virtually hit on is one thing when you can see the person. Seriously, what are you trying to hide buddy by not posting a picture??
Alright… time to choose a picture.
Hhhmmm… This one? Nope. Too long ago. This one? Nope. I look a little chunky. This one? Nooo… my hair isn’t that length or that blonde anymore… Ah! I need to find at least one picture that correctly displays all of my likes and awesomeness in 1 single glance…
OK, this one of me at the Eiffel Tower says that I love to travel and that I am worldly, the one of me skiing says I’m athletic and worldly, and the one of me in the sunflower patch shows that I am carefree … and worldly. Perfect! Glance away boys!
We have established that I am prone to emotional freak outs and that I am awkward. The awkwardness is a character trait that I will never ever grow out of, but I will tell you that my emotional freak outs became less frequent as I found my groove in the internet dating scene. Louis and I emailed back and forth for about a week and my responses became lengthier, more in depth, and didn’t take me over 4 hours to compose. I was pretty proud of myself! Maybe I was the bad ass diva I always knew I was! Well, when you virtually wink at a guy, he’s probably going to email you. And if he emails you and you email him back and he emails you back and you email him back, etc. etc… chances are he’s probably going to ask you out on a date. Enter in more emotional freaking out.
Just when I had become comfortable with the emailing, I had to enter into another unknown and even scarier world of texting. I find texting between my friends to be awkward and daunting at times and now I was expected to text this man that I had never spoken to, laid eyes on, or had any dealings with… without the help or filter of Match. I take back what I said before about not being grateful for their help! I still need them! Don’t push me out of the nest yet, I’m not ready to fly on my own! You’d think the man was asking me to run away with him to Vegas instead of setting up a casual first date with him for all the freaking out I was doing.
Here’s my beef with texting, #1. It’s too instantaneous. Texting doesn’t give you time to think about your responses like emailing does. People expect you to respond quicker, because who doesn’t have their phone with them at all times? Which brings about #2. The wait time. You can’t respond right away because then it looks like you have your phone with you all the time. You can’t wait too long, because people have their phones with them all the time and it’s just rude to leave someone hanging. You have to find that magic time that says “Hey! I’m in the 21st century and own a cell phone, but I am not one of those crazy people that doesn’t ever let go of their phone, but I respect your time enough to respond in a timely manner that is considerate to you.” #3. Your text needs to be short and sweet, but not lacking emotion. The perfect length of a text says, “Hey! I am a busy person so my texts don’t get too much of my time, but they get enough of my time to be able to write you a concise, yet containing the appropriate amount of emotion text.” Piece of cake.
Writing texts is like emails on crack. I have this terrible problem of sending texts that are really just my stream of thought… in writing. Scary. Here’s an example:
OH hey! Mexican sounds great, but only if you want to… I am down for whatever. I can do Thursday too, but really I am free any day this week… not that I’m a loser or anything haha… Just let me know when and where. Looking forward to it, but only if you are!
Like I said, scary.
Anyway, after we had set up the date through texting, Thursday night at a local Mexican restaurant near my apartment, I had to wait around for almost a week. A WHOLE week for me to over analyze and you guessed it, freak out. This week was awkward because we had left the emailing world in the dust, but I didn’t feel like we were quite at the place to be texting every day. We were in online dating purgatory. Do I text him? Will that be creepy? Probably, but we talked every day for a week and now we don’t talk! He’s going to forget about me… He’s going to back out of our date because he won’t remember why we decided to go on it in the first place because we are in the awkward place between emailing, texting, and meeting!! Did I mention that I freak out a lot?
On Wednesday, while talking to one of my male friends, he convinced me (or rather he just said whatever to make me shut up about the whole dang thing) to text Louis casually. It went something like this:
Hey! It’s been a crazy week so I’m definitely looking forward to that margarita tomorrow night!
Safe, right? Well when he didn’t text me back after about 5 minutes (and believe me I was counting the minutes) I started to hyperventilate. Ohhmygoshohmygoshohmygosh…. How could you have told me to text him?! Why did I listen to you? I don’t care that I’m a big girl and I can make my own decisions… YOU talked me into it! I should have kept quiet. We aren’t close enough yet for me to send casual texts!!! After he sent back his reply: Definitely. Me too I calmed down a bit. The date was still on.
Thursday (cue somewhat scary and foreboding music):
7:00 am- 4:00 pm: Work I didn’t think about my date all day… yah right!
4:00 - 5:00 pm: Traffic I hate, hate, hate Atlanta traffic
5:00- 5:30 pm: Shower
5:30-5:45 pm: Apply lotions, potions, and serums to face and hair
5:45 pm: Glance out window No no no… those are not dark rain clouds I see. I don’t care if it’s August and rainy season, I specifically ordered no rain for tonight!! It’s ok, it hasn’t started raining yet… there is still hope…
5:50- 6:05 pm: Blow dry hair Oh my gosh!! It’s raining!! NO! It’s OK. I’ll check the weather channel. It’s probably just a quick little rain…
6:10- 6:20 pm: Frantically check weather.com for radar and forecast. It doesn’t say it’s supposed to be raining! What the heck. I mean really weather people… lets update this mess.
6:20- 6:45 pm: Straighten Hair. OK, really?! It’s like a freaking hurricane. The wind is blowing and it’s coming down in buckets. WHHYYYY MEEEEEEE?!?!
6:45-6:50 pm: Check weather.com again. Have you updated yet, because really all you have to do is look out your window to see the MONSOON happening right now. Alright, it says it should be done raining at 7 ish which will be OK because then I won’t be too early for my date. Fashionably late is sooo mysterious. Perfect.
6:50- 7:00 pm: Makeup. It’s still raining. I am going to have a word to say to those weather people.
7:00-7:05 pm: Stare out window and try using Jedi mind tricks to make the rain stop. Stopstopstopstop. I command you to stop raining! Cease!! MMMMMMMM aaannnnddd CUT!!
7:10: Resign myself to the fact that it’s not going to stop. I guess I need to practice my Jedi force. Better get my rain jacket. UGH.
As I am driving to the restaurant, it starts to let up and the torrential down pour becomes a light drizzle (I should also mention that I park in a parking garage so I didn’t have to get wet going to my car, a point in my favor). I mentioned before that the restaurant is close to my house, it’s 5 minutes at the most. I am thankful that the rain has let up and that I might be able to sneak inside without getting too wet. I arrive at the restaurant and drive through the tiniest parking lot ever. There are literally 8 spots and they are all taken. As I circle the lot a spot opens up and I race to get there, but I am beat out by a girl in a Prius (I do not wish to make any further comment on this. I will just say that I deducted the point I got earlier for the parking garage). I give up and decide to park on the street. The nearest spot on the street is about 3 blocks away.
As I parallel park into what seems to be the only parking spot left on this side of Atlanta it starts to rain harder, of course. While I am walking it keeps raining harder so I have to start running. My Rainbow flip flops are no match for the river I am now running in and so I take them off and start to sprint towards the restaurant. I splash through a puddle that is more like a small lake, bound up to the front door, swing it open and hurl myself inside. I let out a whoosh of air in relief and realize that most of the restaurant is staring at me, but who can blame them? My hair is coming out of my hood in wild pieces, the bottom of my dress is soaked, and pieces of leaves are stuck to my legs. I look like some kind of crazy amazon woman in a pink dress and anorak jacket that embarrassingly says my name across the left side. I glance around and see a guy sitting at a table looking at me expectantly. I put my head down and walk quickly to his table.
Louis?
Yah. Amanda?
Yes… oh my gosh, you’ll never believe what I just went through…
