I read in a press release today that the dating scene is abysmal, and that the prospects for dating aren’t anything like what they “used” to be. Of course the press release didn’t state what time frame they were referring to, but I got the jist of what they meant.

It reminded me of a line in The Holiday, where Cameron Diaz’s character says something along the lines of, “30-something women have a higher risk of dying in a terrorist attack then they do getting married.” ‘Nuff said.

At one point in time, he did. It all started with My Favorite Date, and we even dated for a few short weeks before I had to leave town. It was magical and amazing when it happened, and I still kick myself for leaving when I did. More than a year later we reunited, but things had changed. Something was missing he said, even though he readily admits he was in the midst of falling for me when we first met.

At one point in time we lived across the country from each other, but several years have passed and now our homes lie mere meters from one another.

We’ve both dated since; he countless other women (my head swims a bit trying to keep track of each one), whereas I had one fellow who broke my heart once and for all after years of back-and-forth withdrawals, and one young gal whose relationship with me was exceptionally short lived. I was willing to end everything with everyone for him, whereas two of the women he dated he chose to pursue instead of dating me again.

He’s since admitted to me that he can be stupid to verifiably ridiculous proportions, and that sometimes he thinks with the wrong head.

Strangely, none of that matters to me. I still get twitterpated when I see him. He came over for a visit tonight.

There is undeniable chemistry between us still, and conversations flow like good wine, varying from the mundane to the risque and back again. We are both currently single and dateless.

Although we shared nothing more than great conversation this evening, it felt very much like the time spent during our first few encounters. Was it a date? Does he like me? Again? More?

I feel silly and childish to admit: I’m afraid to ask.

After my diatribe the other day, I decided it was time to watch an uplifting move about love and romance. Funny thing is, there aren’t a lot of films that fall into this category, unless you count romantic comedies. Which probably would have been right up my alley if I could find one I haven’t watched.

So instead I tried Feast of Love, a recommendation from a friend. I had no idea what the movie was about, although I knew there were some big names in the cast. An amazing cook who creates a feast to find love? No, that was Catherine Zeta-Jones in No Reservations. Hm. Well why don’t I just watch it already and find out.

Turns out I was pleasantly surprised, although it wasn’t as feel-good as I’d hoped.

Harry Stevenson (played by Morgan Freeman) starts off Feast of Love with,

There is a story about the Greek Gods; they were bored so they invented human beings, but they were still bored so they invented love, then they weren’t bored any longer. So they decided to try love for themselves. And finally, they invented laughter, so they could stand it.

Which in a way is a bit deceiving. I believed Freeman’s character was some sort of God in the film. Well, perhaps he was. It’s one of those movies that leaves you with more questions than answers, but not in a frustrating or bad way. More of a hopeful, endearing way that leaves you a bit breathless.

I digress, as per usual. Feast of Love is a bit like Run Lola Run (one of my favorite movies of all time) in the way the story is told, showing different characters’ love lives throughout the film. I’m sure it’s not the technical term for this kind of story crafting, but I call it the “spiderweb” technique. At first you have no idea how or where the writer is going to take you, or how the characters will all relate to one another, but you know they will eventually. And in Feast of Love, they do. Spectacularly.

Because of this, it is difficult to explain the film in any sort of coherent manner. Several characters weave themselves into each other’s lives through love lost and found, each one searching for their own relationship Utopia. Everyone is very human in the film, at times making the same mistakes over and over again because they just haven’t learned what they needed to in order to find compatibility. And Feast of Love really gets into the dark crevices of love and all of its permutations: young lovers madly and passionately head over heels for one another, infidelities that become more meaningful than sex, lifelong partnerships that endure horrors no one should have to bear, and the naivety that comes with seeking love with our eyes closed to anyone but ourselves.

Although I shed more than a few tears during the film, I also recognized a lot of myself in some of the characters. The passionate adulteress with an unhealthy obsession, the insular straight gal who finds herself smitten by a woman, for starters. And the feelings that resonated were even more compelling: the actual physical ZING when you realize the person you’re faced with has somehow touched your soul and seen you bare, the empty heaviness that comes around when someone you loves has passes on, and the red-heated fury that passes over your eyes when witnessing abuse.

Feast of Love was exactly what I needed to see to remain hopeful that love is a cycle, and my turn to appreciate it first hand is only mired by a bit of time, and I’m impatient.

Note: this blog post isn’t for the faint of heart. I use very unladylike language and describe things that are probably better left unsaid. Consider yourself forewarned.

Every few years I decide I’m going to stop looking for love, because whatever comes my way when I do isn’t what I really want. Interestingly, as soon as I give up, give in, and stop looking for love - I find it in the most unexpected of places. Now I might not actually fall in love with someone, but I will love them with all of my heart. Or, as my saga favorite first date diddy went, I feel like I’m falling in love, but never quite get there because the timing is off. (Yes, I’ll write the conclusion one of these days. Promise.)

Lately I find myself in that space again. The one where I am so exasperated with the dating scene and people in general that I can’t be bothered looking for love or anything else along the same lines. I choose to see only the shitshow relationships that surround me, wondering how on earth people with no integrity can actually find a partner, and then realize that what they have isn’t something I want in my life anyway. I choose to feel sorry for myself that I can’t find that elusive click. A person attached to a wicked smile that sends my heart aflutter. A snuggle partner. I choose bitterness over being attractive to others, and a scowl folds over my face more often than anything else.

Still, I try. Even though I know damn well that when I’m the only person attending my personal pity party, I suck. Huge. I’m miserable to be around. I struggle to see the positive, and looking for love is like bashing my head against a concrete floor: it hurts and there’s no point.

My version of trying this time around only consisted of checking emails over at OkCupid, my favorite free dating hangout for some time now, although it - like most dating sites - are losing their luster to me. Ok, ok, I’m still addicted to taking the never-ending swarm of test on OkCupid, but I haven’t met someone off it for almost two years now.

I log in anyway, interested to see how my recent quiz scores match up with the locals. But before I can check anything, someone IM’s me. Oh? What have we here? I immediately accept, excited. A bit too excited in retrospect, considering my frame of mind.

It only takes me a few keystrokes to realize the gent at the other end of the chat is looking for sex and not much else, but is doing a good job trying to hide it. He plays a lot of the “who me?” kind of games. You know the ones. The guys who pretend they are innocent as an infant just to find out they have some oddball fetish that even alt.com hasn’t got listed. I’m all for sexual deviances, but really now. Do I really need to know that you masturbate with lettuce?

Anyway. He asks me if I’ll look at his cam so he can “dance”. I’m thinking, ok… maybe, just maybe, he’ll be an upstanding citizen. Maybe he’ll have most of his clothes on. Maybe he’ll dance a dorky little move, trying to make me laugh. Maybe him telling me I’m “shy” for not wanting to see him on cam is really a communication error and not a line shamelessly stolen from Neil Strauss’, The Game. Maybe.

Unfortunately, Mr. Jackass (not his real name) came out stripping right from the get-go. A suggestion that perhaps I’d rather get to know the man behind the penis led me to being removed from his chat list. Ah well. He fulfilled my pixelated penis picture quota for the month.

Do I sound bitter? Angry? Jaded? I realize it’s a hideous combination for a 30-something woman. A stereotype at best. Here’s to hoping I get right pissed off looking for love this week so I can give up once and for all. Then, and only then, will I find what I’m looking for.

I’m reading a book called Drama Kings, an unusual yet highly entertaining and enlightening hardcover about strong, independent women and the men that drive them bonkers. Instead of focusing on how men should change, the book speaks of how women already have, and what women can (and need to) get from a relationship with aDrama King so as to move on when the time is right.

I’m only a couple of chapters into the book, so I can’t really give it a fair review yet. But as to where I’m at right now? I’m dumbfounded. Not only has the author pegged some of my most frustrating prior relationships in a very short time, but she’s also described my personal frustrations with losing myself while in a certain (but not all) relationships. I found her explanations of why and how women became subservient to men in contemporary times (through need via the Industrial Revolution), as well as her own personal views of how things have changed gradually over the past ten years, refreshing and thought-provoking. I also appreciated her dismissal of feminism as the cause of why (many) men feel attracted to strong, independent women yet have no idea what do with them or how to not feel threatened/competitive when in an intimate interaction with one.

If you are showing up halfway through this story, here are parts one and two.

My friend and I invite my date to sit down, and he does - but not after going to grab some tea with me inside. I quickly find out we are both tea aficionados, and I talk his ear off about my favorite brews while he patiently listens. I find his face vaguely reminiscent of someone, but I can`t quite figure out who, so I continue to prattle on. I`m a talker at the best of times, but in this situation I was surprised anyone was able to get a word in edgewise. Surprisingly, my date seems quite comfy with me doing the majority of the verbal work.

When we got back to the table where my friend was sitting, the gent who we’d watched run out just moments before had joined her. I asked him why he ran, and he didn’t have a coherent answer. Hm. As I raised my eyebrow at my friend, the three of us proceeded to try and suss out the gent. We quickly discovered he’d come to the meeting to exchange music from his iPod, but didn’t even have one. Yet he lived mere blocks away, and wanted us to come to his place to get it. Oh, no, wait - that’s why he ran out of the coffee shop, because he forgot his iPod perhaps? we asked. Nope. He just laughed in response.

The more questions that were asked of iPod man, the stranger things got. After 45 minutes into the conversation, I still was too shocked at my date’s attractiveness, and hadn’t managed to even take a peek at him because of the way we were all sitting. Still, I wanted iPod man to go away, as his reverse discrimination and bizarre, ever-changing reasoning was really getting my goat. So, I thanked him for coming along. He got the hint and left.

After he was out of earshot, the three of us proceeded to share a long and hearty laugh, discussing the weirdness we’d all just been a part of. As that conversation became tiresome, my friend decided it was time for her to head back to her place. Since I was staying with her while stopping by on my way through town, we discussed my “curfew”: midnight. As my friend bid us farewell with a wink and a nudge (how subtle, I know!) the two of us made our way across the street to the bowling alley. I absolutely love bowling - even competed at a fairly high level as a kid - but I’d never gone on a bowling date. So off we went.

We had two lanes all to ourselves, while another group of rowdy folks played nearby. The lanes were dark, the music was deafening, and the lasers were on. That’s right, it was laser bowling. Hard to make much of a conversation, other than to exclaim prowess or defeat. Needless to say, I creamed my date at the game, but not without increasing tension between us. Good tension. Really, really good tension. The kind that makes you feel like your belly is being tickled with pop rocks every time you look at the other person. Like your bodies are magnets, draw to one another by forces beyond gravity. It was confusing, exhilarating, and absolutely delightful - and so was he.

But the date still wasn’t over. Neither of us were willing to stop whatever magic was blossoming, so we decided to go for a walk to get some fresh air and get to know each other better.

More to come… soon.

For those looking for part one of this story, you’ll find it here.

My friend and I arrived at the very busy coffee shop later that afternoon. I felt oddly nervous about the date, which was strange considering I rarely get nervous when meeting someone new, but tried to throw myself into looking for my friends’ date to quell the niggling nerves. At least I had a picture of my dude; my friend had nothing more than “I’ll be wearing a leather jacket and a patterned T-shirt.”

I thought I’d ask my friend a bit more about her ‘date’ before he showed up. It seems he was bringing his iPod to synch up with ours, in order to exchange tunes and get a new playlist at the same time. My friend posted the request on Craigslist (a site I’ve never once used to meet new people - hm, maybe I’ll try it one of these days) and this was her first choice. It sounded like he had some interesting musical selections that were completely different than her usual fare, so I was intrigued as to whether or not the guy would even show up.

The coffee house was really packed that night, so we made our way outside to a small table with four chairs. I was wearing an uncharacteristic hippie-ish headband so that everyone would recognize us instantly from the shared online exchanges, but I also was trying to hide the fact that I was in desperate need of a dye job to cover my roots.

Before we could even sit down however, we saw a gent in a black leather jacket - literally - run out of the coffee shop and down the street. My friend and I looked at each other and laughed. “Wanna bet that was iPod guy?” she said.

We sit down anyway, and as we do, I see out of the corner of my eye a man so attractive, I stop in my tracks. Oh. My. Lord. This is my date. Whoa. Much more attractive in person.

Stay tuned for more…

I don’t get it. I’m talking to various people through online dating sites. But for the life of me, I can’t seem to get from the online chat to real-world meeting. I’m finding it incredibly frustrating.

It used to be that I’d talk to someone for a couple of days - not long enough to build too many expectations, but long enough to know if there was enough common ground to yak for an hour or two over coffee. A phone call usually came out of it within a week, if not a full-fledged date. And I distinctly remember men falling over themselves to ask for a date, and I was the one holding off just a bit longer to make sure they were someone I wanted to meet.

Now? The interest is there, but the intentions seem.. different. More libidinous, less respectful. Less about getting to know who I am, and more trying to jump into something serious without the commitment.

Am I crazy? Is it just me? Or has online dating evolved into a smarmy pickup bar?

I remember when online dating was in its infancy, and enjoyed the attention I got online as a geeky gal, because it was the only place I had access where i felt truly supported as a young intelligent woman. Never mind the fact that there weren’t a lot of women in those days using the internet anyway, but those that did were - for the most part - somehow involved with technology. And we were in hot demand.

Fast forward ten or so years. Now there are billions of people looking online for love. Meeting people virtually is more socially acceptable (although still has a stigma attached to it in some circles, albeit not my own), and almost everyone has a story of a friend of a friend who got married to someone they met online.

And yet, I find the actual meeting of people much harder than it was ten years ago.

I’m not sure if I can attribute this change to a societal shift with regards to dating (i.e. casual dating or hooking up is more the norm than the exception) or the fact that I’ve become stodgier at the ripe age of 33. Or perhaps I see things differently now. No matter really. What I find is that I get a lot less dates than I used to when I was single.

Which isn’t to say that I don’t chat with a lot of people. I do. With some, forever, with no intention of ever meeting face to face. Of course if *I* knew that there was no intention to ever meet face to face, I’d never start chatting in the first place. I’m one of those people that finds communicating difficult when you can’t imagine the person with whom you are chatting’s facial expressions or body language. Well, I guess I can do it if the person on the other end either has their web cam on or is an exceptional writer, but neither of those options are really palatable to me. A man with a web cam usually means I’ll get an “accidental” picture of his penis at some point or another, and good writers are usually solitary sorts, like me. I need sociable people, dammit! And not the kinds who like to flash their privates to unsuspecting women online. I mean, penises are fun and all, but why would anyone say or do something online that they would never in a million years say or do in person? How many men do you know who would drop their drawers and start jacking off only after exchanging a cursory, “Hello, very pleased to meet you,” after meeting you while waiting in line at the grocery store?

Anyway. I digress.

I wonder if I may be shooting myself in the foot by continuing to try meeting people online. I have the same expectations of people from the online daters of ten years ago: intelligent, articulate and well-intentioned. Now, I frequently get messages along the lines of merely, “a/s/l?” or, “Hey. u r hot. Whazzup?” - both of which tell me a lot about the person sending the note, and none of whom I’d make an effort to get to know better.

So maybe I’m an online snob, and that’s why I’m finding it so hard to meet people. I’ve been called worse. But is it really too much to ask to see someone’s profile you are interested in, exchange an email or two, and then make plans to meet? Because these days, in my world, it seems like an insurmountable feat.

Several years ago, when bored and visiting Vancouver, a friend and I decided to dare each other to get a date. The rules were simple: talk someone up online, and meet them. She - being the much more artistic and creative of the two of us - chose to use Craigslist, and posted a quirky note basically asking to meet someone new via their iPod: bring their tunes and she’d bring hers for an exchange.

I went the more “traditional” route to finding a date: the online dating sites. I’d just recently discovered OkCupid, which a gal pal of mine had been touting for years. Think of it as a combo social networking site (where you can list your friends and post notes on each other’s profiles), wiki (where you can change people’s profiles if you think someone isn’t accurate) and quiz/test site (where users create the matchmaking questions to see just how compatible you are with others). And since it’s a free dating site…. well it was cheap and cheerful. Good enough for me.

So after answering a whole swack of questions, I messaged the top ten men in Vancouver that matched up with me on the compatibility scale. Or at least that was my intention, until I saw some of their pictures. To this day I still have no idea if the dude sporting the Pharoah costume, mullet and acid wash jeans was joking when he said in his profile he was into “very unusual” forms of interpretive dance. I mean, you’d think he was joking. And yet, he had an awful lot of photos that made it sem he was quite serious about his hobby. One even had him holding an award for it.

Of the remaning “normal” people, two profiles immediately jumped out at me. One was a 37-year-old man who had a striking resemblance to an ex of mine, although he had dark hair and the ex was blond. Oddly, OkCupid even told me the two of them were quite closely matched in the personality department. I sent him something witty yet dry, and hoped to hear back. I didn’t hear a peep from him for over six months however, as I was later told he was out of the country at the time.

The second gent was a bit harder to pin down as to why he resonated with me. He was 30 years old, with short cropped hair, what looked to be a strong physique and only the faintest hint of a smile. His picture wasn’t amazing and yet… it was very sexy in a subdued, “I have no idea I’m sexy” sort of way. He seemed intelligent yet quirky (listing two of his favorite things as being string and lego), sarcastic yet witty, and…. what was this? We both had recently spent time in Alberta and a couple of the same smaller BC communities. Is that perhaps why he looked so familiar to me?

So I sent him a quick email, which unbelievably I still have:

I’m in Van visiting family/friends after a stint one of the smaller islands, thinking perhaps I should take in the ‘local color’ a bit since I’ve been in Alberta for the past four years. Thus why I’m messaging you. Plus, we have an unusually high ‘match’, and I’m curious as to it’s efficacy.

Then I read your profile! Seems we have a lot of locales in common. And now, I’m here.

Well, perhaps I’m grasping at straws. Would you be open to hitting a haunted house or something equally creepy/juvenile while I’m still perusing this lovely city?

For whatever silly reason, I was holding my breath for a response. So instead of waiting to hear back from the guy, I sent out more messages to my top candidates. Which, incidentally, I never heard back from any of them. Not a one.

But I had nothing to worry about, because the gent quickly replied:

I don’t know of any haunted houses, as I guess I missed the ghost migrations this year. Though Playland is doing some SCARY(?) rides. Even better, we could go to Yaletown and check out what people would pay for furniture. Or see if people are still tanning at Wreck Beach! Or… something equally terrifying, I’m sure.

In short, I am intrigued to see how well we match up. I don’t know how long you are here, so here’s my msn…

Like I said: sarcastic yet witty, smart yet quirky. My kinda guy!

But wait. There was yet another message from him, saying:

ok, in case of dire emergency

Just after sending the last message, the internet went down in my area for a few hours… Dang construction.

So, for that reason, and you may leave at any time, and I am really curious as to who you are, and I don’t think you are some creepy stalker… here’s my phone number.

And if you ARE a creepy stalker, cool! We can compare notes!

After excitedly telling my friend about my online email encounter, she informed me that she too had “met” someone, and was making plans to meet them down the street at a local coffee shop shortly. Did my guy want to come along too?

Why not? I thought, so I checked MSN to see if he was around. He was. And so, an hour later, we’d have our first ‘date’.

Stay tuned for what happened… I’ll post the rest of the story soon.