Hiking

So I'm pretty sure it's been officially over a week now. I've gotten nine views from users and sent out emails to seven girls. Despite this, I have yet to receive any replies or acknowledgements of my existence.

You are officially reading the blog of the most undateable man on the internet. I swear this is worse than high school. I might have to start writing bad poetry again to deal with my feelings of rejection.

I did get an email today from a random person. I'm pretty sure it was a bot (internet geek term for a spammer) because the email really did not make sense (And the punctuation and grammar were perfect. Unusual for internet peoples) and the account was subsequently deleted immediately. (Further establishing my faith in my choice of websites. Despite being a free website, they do manage to catch spammers)

Anyways, I'm losing faith fast that anything will really come out of this, but, I figure for entertainment value and the sake of this blog, I must trudge on. I'm thinking about changing my profile some. Literally dumb the language down some to make it easier to understand. Maybe tone back the sarcasm. I've even thought about joining a pay website. But I haven't given up hope for bad and awkward first dates from this website just yet (and I am cheap). The glass is still a quarter full, my friend.

After surfing through countless (at this point, I'm probably up to almost a thousand…no joke) profiles, I've found the magic buzzword hobby.

Hiking.

Yes, dear readers, swallow that in. Hiking (aka glorified walking) is among most popular of hobbies that I've run into among user profiles. This leads me to one subsequent question.

REALLY, WHO HIKES?

Better yet…

REALLY, WHO ENJOYS HIKING?

Hiking to me is the chicken of hobbies. It's bland. It's safe. It's unassuming (Everything tastes like it). It doesn't say too much about you. It takes no prior skill or knowledge to do. It says I enjoy the outdoors (aka I'm not allergic to the sun. On a side note, a good friend of mine is actually allergic to the sun. I shit you not. He sneezes every time he's in direct sunlight. True disorder. Wikipedia it) and I like to exercise (but not too strenuously, because it's very likely that I haven't done a significant amount of exercise since high school gym class), but I'm not a jock. It's the ultimate activity for people that have one butt cheek on the couch but are not yet willing to admit that they might be a couch jockey. (That's my replacement term for couch potato. Couch potato is so denigrating. It suggests that I do nothing on the couch. I move, albeit slowly, on the couch. My ass falls asleep if I sit too long. I change channels. That is an activity. I am more active than a potato.) Hiking ranks among watching paint dry in required prerequisite skills for a hobby. All you need to know how to do to hike is walk. Even playing video games take more fine motor skills than hiking. If haven't learned to walk (and your legs are still functional) and you're online trying to get a date, you are a very special person (not special like, Nate, you're a special guy. Short bus special.)

People who claim hiking as a hobby also consider kickball a sport (on another random tangent, did you know that power walking is an Olympic sport? ARE YOU SERIOUS? You can get a medal for walking fast? To clarify, I respect all the athletes in the Olympics. Although they might not play activities that I consider true sports, they perform their respective events at a level that I, as an ordinary person, could never achieve. Power walking, however, does not fall under this category. If I can do it better than the competing 'athlete', it really doesn't belong in the Olympics. And I know I can do it better. It's called R-U-N-N-I-N-G). I considered kickball a sport when I was in third grade and I thought girls had cootie powers and Optimus Prime was still dead.

But, I digress. Maybe this is where I am going wrong. Maybe my general despise for generic profile answers that really are equivalent to saying the alphabet in respect to revealing any facet of my personality is what best represents me on an online dating website. Maybe I should be vague and opaque to who I am and just list that I am single and am looking for an 'easy girl.' (And yes, by easy, I mean slutty) Maybe I should include a blurred and off angle self shot of myself on my profile to leave more for the imagination to fill in. I tend to forget, in the online world, reality is an option, not an absolute.

Hiking, huh?

Do I hike? Hell yes, I do. I love it.

Now, will you go on a date with me???

So it’s been almost a week now…

…and no real progress on this whole online dating thing. When I first envisioned the "experiment," I thought of two scenarios: either I would go on several horrid dates and write an incredible, award winning screen play from my experiences OR I would actually find someone that I was both attracted to and was mildly somewhat normal on the site. Never really had I considered the possibility that I wouldn't have a date by the end of the first week.

Initially, I took the rejection personally. I thought I wasn't an ugly person, but then maybe I was. Maybe it was the fact that I was Asian. I over analyzed the multiple variables that went into why a person would refuse to press the 'reply' button on one of my witty and engaging emails. How these women so deftly could avoid my charming nature and my clever wit.

Finally, I realize what the problem was. I have been sending emails to racist, stupid, butch lesbians.

 

 

…….

Ah. If life was only so simple. No, dear readers, I am not so vain to think that my failures are attributed the aforementioned assumption that the women I emailed were indeed playing for the other team and were of minimal intelligence. I realize that there is a possibility that all five (technically three, since two of the emails have not been read yet) of the emails that I sent to each girl was read and the girl decided that she wasn't interested. I realize.

At least a few people have dropped by to check out my profile. No news of yet. I did begin to let people rate my picture. My scores were shockingly low (dude, some women rated me a one. I am not a one. I might not be a ten, but there is no way in hell I am a one. I have ten fingers and ten toes. I think that, by default, puts me at two level). So low, in fact, I actually posted a more appeasing (naked) photo of myself (bent over, looking back) on the website. Needless to say, my score is somewhat higher (7.5, baby. Show some T&A and nothing can stop you).

I would love to be able to impart some wisdom that I've learned from this whole experience thus far. I can't. I haven't really learned anything at all. So far it's been a great time filler at work, apart from the multiple games of scrabulous being played. I obsessively check the website everyday hoping that maybe someone will message me soon. All for naught.

Day 2…

So it's officially day 2 after, I've put on my profile on the anonymous dating website. After about an hour of browsing through picture after picture and reading description after description (this has temporarily replaced freecell as my 'time waster at work' activity), I've come up with a few conclusions. (On a separate note, I do have to say half the fun of joining "social networking" or "dating" sites is just mowing through other people's profiles. It's like people watching on steroids) First of all, I am shocked that half of these users passed high school English. Even with Microsoft Word's grammar and spell check, their ability to butcher the English language was phenomenal. I mean, I can take a typo here and there, but some of these people are clueless. I'm not sure if I should laugh at or feel pity for a person that doesn't realize that wine (the beverage) and whine (Linkin Park lyrics) are two different words.

Anyways, after hours of searching, I found two likely candidates that. I emailed them both with what I thought to be friendly and funny emails. It has been about twelve hours. The website has a nice option of seeing the status of the emails you sent out. One was read, but not responded to. The other one was deleted.

Ouch.

I realize if my goal out of all of this is to actually get a date with a person, this might be a long and arduous process. Personal humiliation might be in the deck as well.

The website also has a nice little option of displaying who has viewed your profile as well. 48 hours in a two views. The obligatory Asian girls on the site had to check out my profile. To clarify, I am Asian. I do not actively pursue girls of Asian heritage because they are simply the same ethnicity as me. This comes as a shock to some people, but I actually consider personality to be the strongest characteristic that I look for in a girl (albeit personality with a great ass makes for a stronger candidate). I like intelligent, independent minded women with strong personalities. I like sass, I like wit. I like girls that are self assured. Frankly these are not qualities and traits that I have found in many Asian women.

But that does not deter the fact that people often try and set me up with Asian girls or Korean girls simply based on the fact that we are both Asian and that they think that "we would look good together." (Seriously, I don't know how many times I've been told or been set up this way. No joke, no exaggeration)

I smile. Tell them that I'm flattered, but I'm not interested. Thank them. I smile even though I feel like mismatched pair of shoes that has been put together simply because they are the same color. Yes. And that color is yellow. Even though yellow is the last color that I would describe my skin color as. (Dark, tanned flesh would be more accurate)

So 48 hours in, no updates, no emails and the obligatory views from the two other Asian people on the website.

Things are going so well.

 

An addendum to the previous post…

The previous post, "About the author," is actually my profile on an anonymous online dating website that I recently joined. I thought that it would 1) be funny to write about the experiences I had on an online dating site and 2) keep my options open for the chance for a little romance. Really, I've had friends that have had successful relationships that have come out of online dating. Really!

Anyways, I view it as a sort of social experiment. I have quite figured out the variables in this experiment or the procedure. The website will remain anonymous so that it won't taint the online sample of women that are interested or not interested. I mean what's the worst that can happen? I have an online stalker or two…

Anyways, thus far, nothing. I'm going to let my profile just drift around for a little. I'll report later with results, or lack there of.

About the author….

1) I have what has been described to me as a wry, dry, self deprecating sense of humor.

2) I find the most mundane of house hold chores therapeutic. Folding laundry is relaxing.

3) I am addicted to caffeine, embodied in little silver cans of diet cokes(actually my favorite is coke zero, but I am willing to compromise). I have given up cigarettes and potentially would give up alcohol, but caffeine is a war that cannot be won with me. I am not a functional person without caffeine. Fair warning to those who try and pry it away from me.

4) I enjoy puzzles and puzzle games. My latest addiction that consumes my daily attrition of work is online scrabble. I would like to think that I am good at it, but that in turn would be admitting that I am good at something, which in turn would contradict statement 1 and my constant self deprecation.

5) I enjoy pushing myself to limits and testing these limits. I am not really a competitive person, except unending struggle with myself. Hence, I enjoy running. For those who think of running as painful, my answer is ‘pain is for sissies.’ However, despite my enthusiasm to run and work out, I do not want to be deceitful. I aspire to and could easily afford to lose a few more pounds. I have not recently been mistaken for an Abercrombie and Fitch model (by recently, I mean never).

6) As the aforementioned statement indicates, I am somewhat of a sado-masochist. Thus, I enjoy watching mildly entertaining, but otherwise bad movies on HBO. Among my prouder watching accomplishments- Bow Wow’s performance in the stellar ‘Roll Bounce’ and Nick Cannon’s performance in ‘Drumline.’ I am also a fan of romantic comedies (my most recent foray was 'Definitely, Maybe'), although I will not necessarily always fess up to it. I openly embrace my inner dork and my first love is science fiction. Yes, I love Star Wars (first trilogy only).7) I am a huge football fan (on Fall Sundays I have a tendency to become non-communicative)8) An addendum to statement eight, I am a huge sports fan in general.

9) I typically get into longwinded, usually irrelevant conversations about non-important details of something or another(my most recent conversation was about if power walking is an Olympic sport, then competitive eating should be one as well). Typically, the threat of physical violence is the best way to curb these impulses I have.

10) Although I say I am a registered Democrat, I am not. Truthfully, I am fiscally Republican, but socially Democrat (in layman’s terms, I believe in low taxes and the right to choose). I try to keep an open mind to debates, but generally, have little patience for blatant ignorance.

11) I enjoy malty ales and medium bodied red wines. Bass or Smithwicks is my beer of choice on tap. I order my steaks medium rare, more on the rarer side if I have my choice. I am a bit of a foodie, or I try to be. I enjoy eating and cooking(oftentimes, unsuccessfully) good food.

12) I am horrible with names, great with faces.

13) Another addendum to the previous statement. I am generally absent minded.

14) I aspire to be a writer, but I am somewhat bashful to share my work an ideas. I am hardly ever satisfied with my work, and I constantly think that it can be improved. I realized, recently, that people who consistently ask about how my writing is going are doing so more because they genuinely care and want to know, and not to annoy me on reminding me on how little I have actually progressed.

15) I love music of the indie rock genre. Lately, I’ve been listening to more and more lo-fi. By far and away, She&Him's Volume One has been my favorite album of the summer. Zoey Deschanel is a musical goddess.

16) I do own comic books. I make no aspiration to be cool. I watch the cartoon network fairly regularly as well.

17) I believe in God. I do not necessarily believe in the church. Interpret that as you will.

18) I dream in color.

19) For someone who claims to be a writer, I am not as well read as I would like to be. I would name some of my favorite authors, but as I stated before, I am horrible with names and forgot all of them. I am always open and grateful for suggestions however.

20) My dog is a little bit crazy. He twitches and snores in his sleep. Its cute, in a weird, endearing sort of way.

Late night brooding….

So when is a giving a person a business card just giving a person a business card? Or when is giving a person a business card an invitation for <enter crude sexual innuendo here> (it's late at night and it's hard to think of something clever sex joke right now).

The line between friendliness and flirtation is something that I don't think I'll ever be fully aware of. Some members of the opposite gender are so adept at mixing the two together, it is entirely impossible to distinguish the two from one another. The common male assumption (remember to ASSUME makes an ASS out of U and ME) is that the member of the female gender is flirting with him, which is boosting to the male ego, something, that, if I may mention, is in constant need of boosting. (Now although the line between friendliness and flirting is sometimes blurred, the line between sarcasm and observation is not. For those who do not know me well, the comment about the male ego was sarcastic; ie I know a lot of assholes) The common female reality is that flirting and friendliness are subsequently misinterpreted. Most likely, she was being friendly.

That is the common assumption I make though. Unless a girl woman (I stopped dating girls) has her hand on my crotch and is whispering crude sexual innuendo in my ear, I think the member of the female gender is being "friendly."

This is probably not a healthy attitude. But it's a safe one. Too many times have a misinterpreted her interest in the huge blot of ketchup that is grotesquely hanging off the side of my mouth for the desire to make out. (What? I'm a messy eater.) Or the sidelong glances and tight lipped "what a douche bag" smiles as "checking me out." Or the subsequent proximity or brushing or touching as more than "dude, you're a larger dude and this is a crowded room. It happens."

Even with this unhealthy outlook, sometimes I still get confused. Assuming that no one is really flirting with you kind of bottoms out that thing called self confidence, and the only way to maintain such an attitude is to believe that you have an incorrigible, toad like personality and that you resemble the creepy dude from the Lord of the Rings trilogy that kept on saying 'my precious.' (Yes, I know his name is Smeagol. Yes, I read the LOTR trilogy. Twice) Unfortunately, despite my constant self berating, I cannot entirely convince myself that I am a squat troll. Thus, statistically, a marginal amount of the girls women that I encounter and converse with potentially might be slightly attracted to me. Thus, based upon this conclusion, they must flirt.

But then the question is, is she flirting or is she just being nice?

There are always articles in prominent and not so prominent men's magazines about 'how to read a woman's body language' or 'how to tell that she's into you.' My response to all of this? My next blog that will be entitled 'how to be a sucker and actually believe the stuff you read from a magazine full of buxom, lingerie clad women that interview like they want to have sex with you but in reality don't and the stuff they print about the psychology of women is not true.'

I mean, I guess this is really a roundabout way of saying it, but meeting people is tough. Flirting is awkward. It sucks. But lately, I've been feeling this intense feeling of lack of closeness in my life. I wrote loneliness at first, but when I thought about it, I didn't think it was the right word. I'm not lonely. I have a dog, great friends and family. I'm not alone. I'm not lonely. What I do feel is that as I've gotten older, the relationships that I've made have gotten more superficial. I know, its sounds horrible doesn't it? But it's the truth. Even the closest friends I have, they have trivial problems in their lives and don't necessarily have the time to pay attention to all my trivial problems. Yes, I know not everyone's problems are trivial, but with enough perspective, they usually aren't as big as we make them out to be, but that's beside the point. It's not mean spirited or anything of that nature, it's just the natural progression of life. Even branches of the same tree, although rooted in the same soil, grow apart. I don't question any of my friends' loyalty or even the quality of our friendships. It's just as we've all grown and moved in our separate directions, the daily intimacy of shared experiences was lost.

It made me wonder though. Can this desire for intimacy that I found to be missing in my life be found in anything else besides a significant other? We often bridge the gap of physical intimacy with emotion intimacy. Basically, do I need to be having regular (and subsequent very brief) sex with a person to recapture this essence of intimacy from shared experiences with someone? I find it funny that we often we bridge this aforementioned gap between confidant and sex partner. But it makes sense in an odd way. After all, as we get older, we lie, repress, avoid, change subjects to build walls to protect ourselves. And one of the biggest things that we avoid/repress/lie about is in how we dress. We push up things that aren't really that big, wear larger sizes to hid bulges, wear patterns that "slim." When you're nekked in bed, exposed in all your pale skin that has never seen the sun in ten years glory, this wall is finally gone. (Let me explain naked and nekked as it was explained to me. You get naked to take a shower. You get nekked in order to do something that will make you need to take a shower, later on.) And with this first wall down, it's only natural to assume that most of the rest will come tumbling down.

So is my fate to toil with this lack of intimacy that enshrouds my life until I find someone to have relations with? Or can I find it in other places besides a girlfriend. I don't know. I find myself brooding on late nights wondering if those poor suckers that decided to get hitched at an early age knew something I didn't know. But then I see their looks of unabashed jealousy when I tell them how my weekend which involved beer, channel surfing, and a couch. Maybe I just need to suck it up.

When I told my good friend about these interesting theories, he calmly told me that I should consider moving to New York and come live with him. This would eliminate the daily intimacy lacking in my life, he assured me.

I asked him if he was flirting with me.