Metamorphosis of a Dating Machine, Part I

Whitney:

Some time has passed. Yes indeed. Almost a year since my last post, and I'm thinking back on what has transpired in the last 11 months.

Basically, I graduated from the world of online dating. Here are the ingredients that sum up my year of crazy dating:

1. A lot of energy
2. Interest in people-- all kinds
3. A spreadsheet
4. A dating club
5. Outside research on dating and communication

To Be Continued...

Why is Everyone so HoTT???

Whitney:

I know it's spring and everything, but my god.

Continued tryouts for Team Whitney are going well.

This weather... so tasty.

xx

Spring Cleaning...

Whitney:

Dating is fun! I have downgraded somewhat, with good results. Here's the latest:

• Last week I had the worst. date. ever. Quickly forgotten, the immediately subsequent serendipitous salve was an ego-rejuvenating visit with one of my favorite co-conspirators (aka: I went over to his soho loft and we watched bad movies and laughed our asses off.) We have had a mutually acknowledged fascination with each other since November. I adore this one. Go go gadget Rebound!
• A crush I had on an artist has dissipated, but we are evolving into a collaborative entity: I will take over certain parcels of NYC, and he's going to inject it with awesome art. Perfect.
• I have two dates set up for Sunday and Tuesday with someone I have not yet met. I know it's not kosher, but our flirty telephone conversation (he is currently in CA) helped to dissolve doubts about pre-emptively setting up a second date before the first had occurred... I'll let you know how it works out.
• There was a new one this week-- a lawyer who was good in all the right ways-- smart, funny, chivalrous-- but I didn't feel that spark of attraction, which sadly happens.
• Two more new ones are in the hopper.
• I have finally, thankfully snuffed out the persistent pervasive candle I was holding for this one supersonic human. It is SO over that he's coming to get his cat tonight.
• Lesson learned: with correct alignment, revisiting something lovely from the past can feel just right. Timing is both fleeting and everything.

Crazy Playboy: No Connecto

Whitney:

A guy winked at me. Then he sent me a lengthy email. He was intriguing in all the right ways, and sooo luscious. So I wrote back. And he responded with a poem about my hair. It involved pomegranates. And we carried on like this.

But something was amiss. With each successive reply, I began to sense a few things: He was entirely self-focused (Ok, nothing new so far-- I know this type.) and the exchange started feeling like a giant missed connection. Then he sent me several regurgitated versions of his past writing.

The first involved a missive which he concocted for an audition to be on some dating reality show. It was mildly offensive and exceedingly arrogant (something about how, statistically, there could only be 25 possible women in NYC whom he would consider dating, based on rather outlandish specifications...). Fine. Condescend to have a drink with me and we can talk about dating. It's a good topic. I want to look at your muscles and mentally correct your grammar while you talk about yourself.

The second, though, was the kicker. He sent a document. He wanted my feedback. He said he wrote it for that Harvard publication on sexuality run by students. It was a how-to guide for performing cunnilingus.

So I read it and gave him feedback. He had the right idea, I had several critiques for sure, but I kept my focus on the particulars-- the here and now: I am engaged in an exchange with an online guy who is a self-proclaimed jetsetter ("since he was a baby"), a purveyor of fine foods and finer women, who has sent me an essay on oral sex. I was happier with the pomegranate-hair-poem, to be honest, but alright. We'll go to third base on the 5th email.

His ego-laden response, however, erased any hedonistic feelings he might have conjured up. Rather strangely, he commented on how it was so nice of me to discuss how wonderful, charming, and witty he was. I never said anything approximating that (confused, I checked to be sure), and now he's just kind of creeping me out.

For the record, creepiness negates shared interests, hotttness and multiple academic degrees. This guy is nutso.

V-Day 2006

Whitney:

My Valentime's Day consisted of the following:

1) Love letters
2) Conference calls (not involving very much love)
3) Sending an essay I wrote on V-day to my latest crush (well-received-- phew!)
4) A date with a stranger:

Check it out: I suggested a great bar in BKLYN. Seemed innocuous enough, we drank wine, got acquainted, got flirty, etc, etc... And soon things became a little bizarre-- little did I know that the bar had a scheduled 10pm Bachelor's Ball Retro Strip Tease Extravaganza! Three ladies took several turns each taking it all off-- It was all about the panties and the pasties, flowing feathers, lacey leathers, etc... and each successive lady was curvier than the next. It was pretty entertaining as far as first-date distractions go. Furthermore, I recently discovered that this particular bar has been relegated an ideal place to take someone with whom you want to get naked, pronto (original relegation was stated far more crudely)!

Happy Valentine's day! I love you!

Online Dating: Catching 20 Winks

Whitney:

I have taken online dating to another level, and then I took it to an even OTHER level. Five point five months of other-levelness. And now, for the last time, I am mechanistically on a dating rampage-- a grand finale, if you will. Last week I met 4 new people. This week is slated for another 3 or 4 or 5 more. And then, finally, this thing will (will this thing?) be out of my system.

But what IS it that I am trying to purge? I am good at meeting people. I excel at having fun with strangers. I am charming, witty, aglow in those first moments. I like that stage of interaction. I'm a pro.

So the logical conclusion is that my issue is with monogamy: At this rate, I am having a steady, committed relationship with a never-ending stream of new people. It's hard to break up with that pattern-- but I simply replaced one kind of commitment with another, and which one is more instructive, healthy, fulfilling, real? I mentioned I met 4 new people last week, but I also went out twice with a guy who has been a steady undercurrent for the last 3.5 months. That's 6 dates in one week. What am I doing?

Maybe it sounds like I am struggling with something, but I think it feels like continuous exploration. Even still, I have determined that I am asking the wrong questions. This is why I am not arriving at the answers, and why I haven't been able to stop asking for them. Clearly, redirection is in order. Redirection is imminent.

I can blame it on New York, but that's too easy. On the plus side, I have more reverence than ever for the connections, the true ones, that I've made. My precious self needs a break from leaking energy to all of these lovely men-- I'm feeling the need to conserve. Conservation means inspecting--peering inside--my system, where I will hopefully identify that pattern, that manifested yearning for something, and in so doing, I can find satisfaction in there-- and in what lies beyond this tenuous, albeit intriguing, albeit enjoyable, superficiality. In so doing, I can go out with an *ahem* bang, turn over a new leaf, and look back on this period with dizzy, sated, hopeful wonder.

The countdown begins. Shortly my online dating chapter will itself be catching 20 winks.

For Melting...

Whitney:

In my online (OkCupid) wanderings, I spotted this-- a public submission from someone (a lady?) to a man who was designated as one of my matches... I was quite struck by this, imagined myself the recipient of such tender, touching, tension-creating words, and I commenced the requisite (involuntary) melting, and I relished the existence of this kind of pointed, raw, expression, and then... and then. I collected myself from myself-as-puddle in order to share.

I like my body when it is with your body. It is so quite new a thing. Muscles better and nerves more. I like your body. I like what it does, I like its hows. I like to feel the spine of your body and its bones, and the trembling -firm-smooth ness and which I will again and again and again kiss, I like kissing this and that of you, I like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes over parting flesh . . . . And eyes big love-crumbs, and possibly I like the thrill of under me you so quite new.

--E.E. Cummings