How To Be Dateless: GUARANTEED
May 15, 2009 12:05 PM
I am no amateur when it
comes to social gaffs. And for those gaffs that occur
in the social space of online dating, I am a master.
Here is a true story that happened to me last fall.
So if you are interested in how to remove yourself
from the dating world, read on and learn.....
I had set up a profile on match.com and had recently started emailing this one woman pretty regularly. It seemed we were hitting it off and were planning a face to face meet up. It was just at that time that I received my cancer diagnosis. So I emailed her and told her what was happening. I knew I would be spending some time in the hospital and then continue on to some unpleasant treatments for the following months. My main point? Don’t wait for me. I let her know I enjoyed emailing her but that it just wasn’t going to happen for us.
The following week, I was in a doctor’s waiting room and wasting time online with my laptop. I knew dating was going to be out of the picture for me for a while, but in a fit of self pity, I returned to the match website, if only to contemplate everything I would be missing in the coming months.
I then came across another great profile and before I could think twice, I habitually hit the Wink button. No big deal, I thought, nothing was likely going to come of it anyway.
Except it did. The next day I received this email....
“Dude! Don’t wink at me!!!!! Are you crazy? Didn’t you just tell my sister you had cancer? Are you a big liar?”
Yes it is true. Of the tens of thousands of anonymous people on match, I hit on two sisters. And when I looked at all the facts of the situation, I knew one thing. I was screwed. While I don’t think I necessarily did anything really wrong, at the same time I did EVERYTHING wrong. Hit on someone’s sister? Oh, man. There is no recovery regardless of the circumstances.
For the next two days I suffered a barrage of angry emails from both of the scorned women. Clearly, I looked like the biggest jerk in the world. All I could do then is close my laptop with a bemused smile. Man, some people just shouldn’t date, you know?
I had set up a profile on match.com and had recently started emailing this one woman pretty regularly. It seemed we were hitting it off and were planning a face to face meet up. It was just at that time that I received my cancer diagnosis. So I emailed her and told her what was happening. I knew I would be spending some time in the hospital and then continue on to some unpleasant treatments for the following months. My main point? Don’t wait for me. I let her know I enjoyed emailing her but that it just wasn’t going to happen for us.
The following week, I was in a doctor’s waiting room and wasting time online with my laptop. I knew dating was going to be out of the picture for me for a while, but in a fit of self pity, I returned to the match website, if only to contemplate everything I would be missing in the coming months.
I then came across another great profile and before I could think twice, I habitually hit the Wink button. No big deal, I thought, nothing was likely going to come of it anyway.
Except it did. The next day I received this email....
“Dude! Don’t wink at me!!!!! Are you crazy? Didn’t you just tell my sister you had cancer? Are you a big liar?”
Yes it is true. Of the tens of thousands of anonymous people on match, I hit on two sisters. And when I looked at all the facts of the situation, I knew one thing. I was screwed. While I don’t think I necessarily did anything really wrong, at the same time I did EVERYTHING wrong. Hit on someone’s sister? Oh, man. There is no recovery regardless of the circumstances.
For the next two days I suffered a barrage of angry emails from both of the scorned women. Clearly, I looked like the biggest jerk in the world. All I could do then is close my laptop with a bemused smile. Man, some people just shouldn’t date, you know?