You're Making My Head-er Spin

Robert:
Profile headers manage to reveal so much about a potential dating partner—but rarely what’s intended to be heard. Case in point: “Looking For Baggage to Match Mine” may not realize how downright horrifying his profile reads. Same with “I Deserve a Second Date” and “Sexed-Up Frantic” and “Bootylicious, Lick It.” Here are the daters who manage what others do so often in daily life: to proceed through every instant oblivious to their bad choices, their impact, their surroundings or common sense, cultural mores, and basic norms about psychology, life, dating, and making it in a world so quick to judge and dismiss.

Recently, I was captivated by the profile of a man so unabashedly self-confessional that he revealed every brutal detail of his childhood abuse, sparing nothing, instead offering quick, glib lessons on the meaning of survival. He concluded that his youth had fissured him irreparably and that any potential dater must concede him innumerable emotional flip-outs. Confessionals do this, you know—they encourage emotional paralysis and temper tantrums, beckon us to watch with eyes glued to the television, then have the nerve to coin it “real love.” As I was wondering what kind of man would email such a type, I clicked on his photo and saw one after another, each revealing various angles of the same, stunning shot: a life-like male statue gleaming in water, swimming trunks etched lightly on his tight frame, a smile that could make sex seem transcendental. I’ve been down those curves and my car has gone tumbling. Ah, yes: I know the type to contact him.