The Dating Game

Contrary to popular belief, being single (read: divorced) at 44 isn't so bad. I love having my own time and doing my own thing. I wake up and go to bed whenever I want. I hardly spend any time at the grocery store because I can find a satisfying dinner when my refrigerator is practically empty. Cheese and crackers with a glass of wine makes a great dinner. Oh who am I kidding? Cheese and crackers with a bottle of wine makes a great dinner.

An unmade bed is acceptable and dusting the living room with a Kleenex is all right. No one complains about anything I do. But when you need someone to fix the broken microwave, hang a closet door, sweep the garage or take out the trash...or you know, to kill spiders and boxelder bugs, it would be nice to have a guy around to do it. And fine, I admit it sure would be nice to look at the evening sky with someone special or share wine together, or hold hands and feel tingly.

So, sap that I am, I joined match.com. For the first couple of weeks, I checked the pictures and profiles all the time, and I sent a few email notes to guys I thought might be nice to meet. But there never seemed to be a connection. One guy said he found it "sexy" when a woman makes the first move (which I had done). He thought I was appealing and attractive but he wasn't interested in me. Well, smoke another one, buddy. Who do you think YOU are? Prince Charming? I'm sexy, appealing and attractive but you're not interested? OK, I wish you luck in your search (that's the stock language on match.com).

Match.com offers automatically generated "top matches," "daily 5" and you can "wink" at other members to express your interest (instead of writing an email, but I prefer a man that can construct a complete sentence). After several winks from guys that were clearly not matches (I mean did they even read my profile at all?! I said I eat SALAD, not three cheeseburgers and a super size fry!), I'd had enough. It kills me when a match comes automatically with the automatically generated match information, "Like you, he's not a smoker," or "Both of you enjoy baseball."

It should say, "Like you and 40 million other people..."

Come ON! That's not a match. So I've given up. Now I use my match.com membership to make fun of people. Bad? I don't think so. Can you really blame me? (Correct answer: no.) I mean, when a guy picks a name like CecilDragon, SheGuns or ThisDogStillHunts for his username, what do you expect? He's asking for it. And you can count on me to dish it out. I'm not gonna sit home on a Friday night and pity myself for not having someone to hold hands with. I'll make fun of his ass all night.

SheGuns? What does that even mean? I was very clear in my profile that I'm interested in MEN, not burly women who look like Chyna! And for goodness sake, ThisDogStillHunts. Really? Not in these woods, buddy. Then you've got LeftWingLoon, LoudPipes, BigDaddySugar and MadeInJapan. I mean that is just too much information.

...and then there's Tedlicious...

I am SO done.