Online Dating Tales, part 2.

Ah yes. What has come to be a rite of passage for my generation: the lovely world of online dating. Or searching for dates. After a conversation with my friend Alex tonight, I decided to hop online to the site I'm on and peruse some options. All week long there's been this deafening clanging in the apartment, and I finally realized that it was just my biological clock. So. I put in some advanced search criteria: male, Jewish, ages 27-37, doesn't smoke/drugs, rarely drinks and has at least gone to graduate school. There were a few really good ones that I emailed one from Tel Aviv who seemed smart and funny, and another who got his PhD at MIT and listed books I liked and was pretty funny in his responses. But then....then, there were those special ones.

Like the one wearing a hat with deer antlers, made out of aluminum foil. Or the one wearing a clown hat and nose. Or the shirtless one wearing a tie, whose screen name was "iwantsexmeow." Or the lawyer whose profile picture was a picture of him, arguing in court. (douchebag much?). Then there was one who admitted he used to be a sex addict. Another one spelled "licorice" as "liquorish," and one who listed Lolita as his fave book - guys, even if it IS your fave book, DON'T list it. Then...this one takes the cake. For the part that says "I spend a lot of time thinking about", he wrote, "What do boogers smell like? I mean, they're in your nose all the time, but why can't we smell them?" YEAH. And these were some of the results I got with the *advanced* search.

Is it so much to ask for an educated, intelligent, somewhat mature, nonsmoker guy who is well read and has good playlists on his iPod? Is it so much to ask for a guy who wants kids sooner rather than later, who hates crowded bars and likes wasting hours in bookstores? Or a guy who will bring me flowers for no good reason? (Although my dad may have spoiled me in that respect - my future guy has a lot to live up to!). Where is the guy who wants to move back to Chapel Hill with me, the guy who likes his independence and knows I need mine, too? The one who likes watching college basketball, who can shit-talk with me about teams?

Many women my age are finding it hard to meet a good guy. And until you've been here, you have no idea how slim the pickings are. You'd be shocked as to how many smoke pot still, or drink frequently (too frequently for my tastes). It's rough out there.