Miss Disastress: finding love (or something like it) in unexpected places.

It's been nearly a month since I updated this now-neglected blog, and my, these times they are a-changin'.

I am now most definitely dating Mr. OkCupid #4, and all is going pretty swimmingly.

As for the fact that I am a Jesus Freak and he is not, I'm not going to lie -- while it's an occasional frustration, I'm not going to pretend that it has proved monumentally disruptive in our short-term, agno-Christian relationship. (Maybe this observation is evidence of immaturity in my faith, but for the purposes of this blog, I aim for honesty rather than false piety.)

At least I haven't fallen into the trap of dating someone solely for the purpose of converting him.

Mixing Business With Pleasure -- or at least Trying Not To

Well, this week of OkCupid adventures has certainly topped all expectations -- both of results and of my own ability to make poor choices. Here, dear readers, is the series of events exactly as they happened:

last Tuesday: I get a message from a guy who, in his words, doesn't like Jesus as much as I do, but does like pretty much every interest/hobby I have, and isn't looking for a relationship right now anyway. He's pleasant and witty enough, so I absentmindedly start chatting with him.

fast forward to Monday: We have been chatting for nearly a week, practically non-stop. I agree to go out with him for dinner on Friday.


Wednesday: I need to hire someone to perform a service for an event at work. Every lead I follow is a dead end -- until I remember that Mr. OkCupid #4 has the necessary qualifications. So, I hire him. Yes, I hired him before I met actually met him. Poor Choice #1.

Friday:
7:00 - The Sort-Of-Maybe-A-Date has been transformed partially into a Working Dinner, and now feels very much like a real date.

9:00 - After a predictably awkward but very pleasant evening, I am really kind of smitten -- smitten with an agnostic who, for all I know, could be one of those guys who finds chaste women to be alluring challenges. Poor Choice #2.

And now I have to keep seeing him for the next three weeks, regardless of the outcome. Well done, Disastress.

Disastrous Date #6, Renamed

Just before my date with GRE Words Guy this evening, a friend suggested that he needed a new nickname, along the alliterative lines of Vegan Virgin. Fortunately for her, I had one by the end of the evening:

GLENN GOULD.

And not this Glenn Gould (who admittedly had his allurements),



but rather this Glenn Gould:

.

In his defense, this evening's G-squared had none of the affectation or the pretension of the self-conceived darling-of-the-camera shown above. But he really does talk like that, and act like that. His e-mails and instant messages were not playful exhibitions of his intelligence. Oh, no. He really talks like that in real life. Like some strange amalgam of Data from Star Trek and Stephen Fry. He also wears a pocket watch and a tie pin, and apparently owns (but does not drive) a '52 Belvedere.

I was relieved to discover at the end of the evening that the pills he had been furtively taking from his wallet and popping were merely Lactaid -- apparently his aversion to chicken parm is so strong that he needed four within the course of 2 hours.

We did have some great conversations -- so much so that we had to leave the restaurant after settling the bill (I paid half, of course) and talk in the parking lot for 30 minutes. This is one of the most brilliant, most sincere, kindest people I have ever talked to. He is even a Christian, if not fervently so -- which frankly doesn't bother me one bit. (Dating other Christians, always a difficulty for me, has become a recent goal and is largely what prompted my OkCupid endeavors.) So WHY does he also have to be the oddest, most anachronistic person I've ever encountered??

I have dated some real weirdos in my time (some of whom are in the list at right), but I usually did not realize how strange they actually were until I had removed myself from the situation. This time, I knew immediately that Glenn Gould is not someone I could bring home to introduce to my parents, friends or anyone without having to shield him from their reactions. Not that that should matter, but it certainly doesn't help.

How I Met Disastrous Date #5, and Possibly Disastrous Date #6

It seemed like every unattached mid-twentysomething I knew -- especially those at my church -- was on eHarmony, Match.com, or both. In fact, I often felt like I was the only single Christian woman over 22 who was not looking for a husband. Yes, I would like to be married eventually (with "eventually" meaning "hopefully before I've lived alone for too many years to have a successful cohabitating relationship"), but I don't view it as a life goal. "Settling down" does not interest me; to quote Elizabeth Bennet, "Nothing but the very deepest love will induce me into matrimony."

The trouble is, I am a heterosexual woman. So, I like men. As loathe as I am to admit it, I would rather have a boyfriend than not.

But how to find one? What do you do when you are unable to act around the opposite sex in a "gender-appropriate" way that fits societal norms of date-worthy behavior -- treating every male you know as though you're his buddy or his boss rather than a potential love match? What to do when your "addictive personality" (the nicest thing a boyfriend has ever said to me) is almost always swept aside at the first sign of a prettier face? Or, worse, how do you face rejection from someone you might actually have to see again at some point in your life?

The answer couldn't have seemed simpler: blind dates, facilitated either by online dating sites or by people you actually know. But as Disastrous Dates #1-3 and #5 demonstrate, dating blind can be anything but simple.
Despite being fully aware of the headaches, annoyances and utter wastes of time such an endeavor could yield, I signed up for an OkCupid.com membership. I chose OkCupid because it is a.) totally free, b.) a happy medium between super-sketchy and -trendy Match.com and the lets-get-married-NOW eHarmony.com, and c.) written about by one of my all-time favorite bloggers, Anna Broadway of Sexless in the City.

So, the Vegan Virgin was an OkCupid match. We exchanged e-mails, IMs, and phone calls, and all seemed to be great. Well, you know how that ended. Next up: "GRE Words Guy", as he was named by a fellow OkCupid adventurer. He is a just-slightly older guy who writes like a nineteenth-century Brit. The date is Saturday -- I'm mostly curious to see if he really uses words like "halcyon" in normal conversation.