Choices, Choices

I do some homework.

Priscilla is on Match.com. She's had some very fun dates. She's had some clunkers. She says it's hit or miss. But she is having fun.

Joy tells me that eHarmony is known for better quality of matching. It's scientific. You also pay for it so people who are out there on it are more likely to be serious about a relationship. She's had friends on Match and eH and the buzz is better for eH.

Charlotte tells me she thinks I am out of my cotton-pickin' mind and that online dating is going to be nothing but an enormous mistake brimming with disaster. It is not my style. I don't need it. She wants to screen all of my dates. (And let's be honest, I have really dropped the ball, in glorious, graceless fashion, in the "screening out" function. I think my chip is damaged.) But I tell her I am lonely and not working and men just aren't dropping by the house to say hello, exactly.

Hil says to go with eHarmony. She likes their commercials. Pat says I should figure out what's going on with Craig first and not be too hasty to get rid of him. He says I seem to like him a lot. But if I do decide to go fishing in a new pond, can the pond be closer to home? They want to meet the next guy.

I check with my friend James. He is a font of information. He says there is a freebie site that is like a dumping ground of all manner of people hoping to scrounge up a date for the weekend and perhaps not much more. There is Match, which is the mid-range site, higher caliber, lower cost, fewer rules. He knows about this one because it allows same sex connections to be made. eHarmony does not, which makes me cringe. They don't endorse THAT kind of dating? Isn't love love no matter who has done the falling? Anyway, he says, he recommends eHarmony for me since he is sure I don't have the patience for the usual bullshit and deserve better than to have throngs of dirtball overly-optimistic suitors contacting me like a pack of wild dogs.

I go with eHarmony.

I sit in the cottage and go through all the steps. There are a lot of them. So many that just when you think you want to skip the rest and go pour a beer, the system itself sends you an encouraging little note. Gives you a preview of some potential matches. Tells you to keep going. Love is out there waiting.

Puh-lease. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

There are thoughtful questions with boxes to check and comments to make. There are free form answers and pictures to upload. It is sort of fun, and just as I'd expected, a lot like writing your own resume. Only so personal. So exposing.

And I have to really search my soul for some things. For instance, how important are looks?

Well, important and not. I have dated some ordinary looking men but it was certainly much easier to date a Chippendale look-alike like Scott. And those unremarkable looking guys, I met them as friends first when looks weren't part of the selection criteria. And as I got to know them, and began to become attracted to their personalities, they became much easier on the eyes. The charming, soft-spoken funny guy also suddenly had really long eyelashes and a very pretty smile. The confident, studious romantic had really nice masculine hands and a beautiful thick head of black curly hair.

But I wouldn't be meeting these guys first. Looks would have to be kind of important. If all I get is a picture and a few self-authored descriptive notes, I am going to have to make a judgment call. And if he's 5'7", has a comb-over, is 40 pounds overweight and dresses like pro wrestler, I am not sure I give a hang if he has a beautiful soul.

I rate looks on the high end but not top banana. Safe answer, I think.

How important is religion? Am I religious or just faithful?

This is a loaded question. I'd like to have someone in my life who practices a faith, but I do not want a Bible-beating zealot who is going to ask me to repent if I drop a few JCs in vain in the kitchen making dinner. I also don't have much exposure to wildly different religions than my own. And from what I can tell, I'd be a really crappy obedient Jewish wife. Maybe a reformed Jew who can't be bothered with most aspects of his religion would be tolerable but then that isn't really having a faith, is it? And I could never date a strict Jew. He can't touch women who aren't his wife? What? I could just see me introducing him to my friends. Kate would kiss him on the cheek and he'd be flogging himself all the way home with his nose in the Old Testament.

I am tired of thinking about myself. I would like someone else to think about me. In the meantime, I am going to go pour that beer.