my weekly dating round-up

It’s been an interesting week, so I’ll share a few highlights:

• In chatting with the boy in the next cubicle earlier this week, he referred to a woman as “high maintenance.” Thus, yesterday, in the midst of some major venting (surely steam was coming out of my ears), I asked him if I was high maintenance yet. He replied, “There is a formula called the sexy/maintenance slider. Both factors have to be weighed in determining whether a woman is high maintenance.” In summary, he created a PowerPoint slide (I know, HOT!, right?!) to illustrate that I am so sexy that it would be impossible for me to be high maintenance. Highly subjective…but at least I got that goin’ for me.
• I shut down my online dating profile again. Here’s why — and another reminder for all the women out there to mind their safety: Apparently, my user name was too similar to another moniker of mine out there in the interwebs…I never really thought about this, though I’ve always followed the usual guidelines about meeting in public places and never having someone pick me up for a first date. Anyway, some enterprising fellow (who was obviously interested enough to dig) discovered more about me than I would be ready to share. I suspect this is perfectly normal — we’re all curious and it’s natural to want to find out more about someone who interests us. But we usually reveal these endeavors at appropriate times, as a comfort level is reached… This guy, who (for various reasons) didn’t interest me anyway, endeavored to send an email (I didn’t receive it) to my personal email address without my having offered him said address, and then told me about it in a message on the dating site. This felt unduly forward and very creepy and, frankly, I felt violated! It’s quite possible that he could know where I live…and I’ve never had any interest in meeting him. I will be minding my personal safety closely… Lesson learned: choose a user name that in no way resembles any identifiable names or characteristics that another might be able to associate with you!
• Before all that, I checked a message on my mobile phone and a gent from my online dating site, seeing that I was online, tried to IM me. This gave me the sudden realization that, all those times I thought I was stealthily online on my data phone weren’t really stealth at all…and, having a bad habit of keeping multiple browser windows open on both my phone and computer without realizing what I have open has probably made me appear to be a stalker, too! Gross. What can I say? My girlfriends and family want to see who I’ve been chatting with or meeting. No wonder I scared that really cute one away! I’m a complete techno-dork! And I mean that in the most technologically incompetent way.
• Finally, I’m delighted to report that I am less than an hour from meeting someone who seems genuinely interesting and genuinely interested in me. He TAKES INITIATIVE and has called me wanting to talk more than once and asked me out. There are moments he seems very “in earnest” and a bit nervous. Still, yay for masculine energy! (Still, I’m going to let a friend or two know where I plan to meet him in case my body is found in the river days from now…)