NOT LIKE THEIR PROFILES

By: Caitlin Abber

I met Geoffrey on OkCupid, the go-to dating website for people who don’t want to pay for what they can get for free. The questions are clever. The ambiance feels young. The idea is that you’re not looking for a single “match,” but rather a wide array of potential men or women with whom you can have a variety of relationships. In that way, it’s very exciting.

Geoffrey’s pictures were basically all the same, he was just in different outfits. He used twenty-five cent words and sincerely listed Michael Bolton as a musical favorite. I could tell he was at least handsome, silly and smart. We had enough chemistry to kiss on our first date. We were both seeing a few people at the time (and were honest about it, which is the important part), but as these things go, we quickly realized that we wanted to spend time with each other more than we wanted to spend time with anyone else.

I realized this about a month after we met, when he got sick and couldn’t attend a party on New Year’s Eve, which also happens to be my birthday. I started angrily drunk texting him. You know, the old: “I thought you were going to be here!” and, “You should have told me.” I was devastated by his absence, and spent the first day of 2010 sitting outside of his chosen local coffee shop, hoping he might come by.

But Geoffrey didn’t get coffee that day, and he didn’t return my calls or texts for almost a week. I was worried about him, because what if he really was so sick he was hospitalized? Or… dead?

Of course he wasn’t dead. He was on OkCupid! I could check the last time he logged in and see if he had viewed my profile recently. And he had been viewing it — every day since New Years. I felt like he was staring at my photos and reading my ‘About Me’ section like I was a sweater he was considering ordering. I turned my OkCupid settings to private so he wouldn’t know how many times I looked at his profile (constantly).

I was trying to be “mature” and give him space, but I am also childishly impatient. Finally, I wrote him a curt email. And finally, too many days after the whole fiasco, he responded.

When we met up, I tried to play it cool. He flirted as if nothing had happened, but quickly noticed my distance.

“Are things different between us?” he asked.

“Yes.” I responded. “I wish you had just told me you were mad, instead of making me suffer for a week.”

“Okay,” he said, “I wish you had believed I was really sick, because I really was.”

My relationship with Geoffrey became very human at that moment. We were both flawed in a way that chipped away at the fantasy. I knew he was the type that holds grudges, and he knew I was the type that suspected cheating (essentially, we were both the same).

Eventually, we decided to keep seeing each other, because regardless of what happened on New Year’s, we rationalized that we could probably look past our errors. I could still see him as that 86% perfect match, if he could do the same for me.

Whether we are looking for sex or a more serious relationship, we go out on each new date hoping that that person is who they say they are online, but better. Sometimes we hope that they are taller, or that mole is smaller in real life, but for the most part, we are going out with them because we see that they have the potential to be important or useful to us. We have hope. I think this is why I am such a big fan of online dating. Instead of just meeting someone in a bar or through friends, online dating gives you this time to build yourself up to be the best version of yourself. And, should you let it, it gives you the distance to fantasize about someone before really knowing them. Wondering what someone kisses like, or dances like, or even smells like in the morning, is some vital old-timey romantic stuff. If you do it right, when you get to know each other, you should both be half real, half fantasy. Then, the first time they ask you to watch the “Missing You Now” video starring Teri Hatcher, you won’t even think twice about it. Actually, you’ll go to bed feeling like the luckiest person in the world, because someone you fantasize about trusts you enough to be 100% real – unlisted flaws and all.