Plenty of Catfishing

I made a rookie mistake on one of the online dating sites. I attribute this to the fact that my brain isn't firing on all cylinders due to a shortage in dopamine and oxytocin (a condition that results from sex starvation).  If I had been up on my Italian actor trivia, I probably would not have fallen for the bait.








In my defense, I was immediately suspect when I saw these two photos. However, the guy said he was a real estate agent, so I could see needing headshots. (Okay, that doesn't explain him randomly posing in some murky water, half-naked, with his pants unzipped, with a dog that appears to be in the process of escaping him.) But, he did have several casual looking photos, so I thought I'd chance it and email him.

As I am emailing him, my 14-year-old son pops in the room and sees the above photos. "Mom! Catfish!"  To which I replied, "I know, I know. I thought that too, but look at this casual photo of him with his 20-year-old son."

"Did you google the picture?"

"What?  How can I google a picture?"

My son, sounding more and more exasperated, "That's what you do. You google the image to see if you get a hit."

Pause..."Um, how do you know so much about this?"

"I watched a video. Here, let me show you."

He then proceeded to "school" me on catfish detection.  Unfortunately, this was too late.  The guy had already responded with an email, "Oh please tell me you're open minded..." Now, in Portland-speak, that usually means the person is into polyamory.

If only.

After reading the rest of his email, I felt the needed to scrub my eyes with a Brillo pad and bleach.

The good news is: My mistake is your gain! If a photo is too good to be true, as the above, it probably is. Right click on the suspect image, select copy address or copy link. Paste this into the Google search window and then click the little camera that says "search by image."  Paste the URL into this window, search by image, and it will show you if this image gets any hits.

Needless to say, the above images pulled up the Italian actor Raoul Bova, who, as far as I know, does not deal in real estate and probably doesn't feel the need to do online dating.

Another catfish detection is to ask the person to send you a photo of them touching their ear with their pinkie finger.  Evidently, this is such a random pose that it is difficult to find an attractive actor's photo imitating this on the internet.

101 Dates: Date 2 Tinder Boobs and Contortionists

Date 2

The setting: I had already purchased tickets for a jazz and burlesque show at one of the local haunts, and I got to thinking it would be a little odd to attend a burlesque show as a single woman. I thought, "Well, hell, Tinder is supposed to be all about the spontaneity, right?"  I had a lot of guys say they wanted to go, but once I directed them to purchasing their own tickets, all communication dropped off. I suppose, being Portland guys (and consequently unemployed or struggling artists or artisans), they expected me to purchase their ticket. HA! 

Anyway, I finally got one bite. A guy that had a suspicious profile picture. It was him with the sun behind him pouring rays over his face into the camera lens. I have since found this is a popular angle for guys on dating websites. It's the equivalent of using Vaseline over the camera lens. Anyway, he was going to be late due to just coming off work (another warning sign. The show started at 9 PM. Unless he is a nurse, there is no good job that has you getting off work after 9). He finally got there somewhere between 10 and 10:30. Unfortunately, that was enough time for me to scan the crowd and see there were a couple of attractive single guys there--alone. It turned out to be the perfect setting for a date with no personality (which he happened to be). He got points for offering to buy me a drink and for being somewhat ambitious. He was climbing up the corporate ladder and was beginning a sales position at Carmax, which would enable him to give up his day job. Hmmm...I do expect someone over the age of 30 to be a little further in life than graduating to a sales position at Carmax. ONE of us needs to be able to afford those expensive dates at Portland's upscale restaurants. 

The rest of the date involved us periodically getting up from the table and straining to see the burlesque show over other's people's heads.  I will say, the show was really good. They had a great contortionist that rivaled some of the performer's I've seen at Cirque. In the hour and half before my date's appearance, I had a great time chatting with the man (a juggler that juggles at Wanderlust circus shows) and the contortionist's sister, who were sharing their table with me. 

The date ended with an awkward, "So, maybe we can see each other again?"  Me:  "Um, sure." Him: nervous giggle, "Okay. Well, okay. I guess I'll see you."  Me: "Yep."

I deleted my Tinder profile after I got home. 

Points deducted:  

• A deduction of 10 points for nervously giggling after every response to my questions. 
• A deduction of 30 points for having no discernible personality. Granted, this was our first date, and it wasn't the most date-friendly setting, but hey, we're watching women twirl tassels on their tits. There's got to be some conversation starters there. 
• A deduction of 10 points for greatest career achievement thus far being able to quit his day job because he just got promoted to sales position at Carmax. 
• A deduction of 20 points for being monochromatic. I kid you not. This guy had no variance in his color palette. His skin was pale, his eyes were pale, his hair, including lashes and eyebrows, were pale. It was a very Caucasian theme. 

101 Dates: Date 1: Tinder Coffee

Date 1

The setting: My usual coffee meet 'n' greet. Met him on Tinder, and refreshingly, after the second text, he suggested we meet for coffee.  He wasn't a troll. Maybe a bit of a paunch, but had hair, which is a remarkable feature for the over-40 male set. The most interesting thing about him was that he volunteered for Search and Rescue. Now, one would think there would be endless tales of bicep bulging close calls. Nope. Nadda. The most engaging stories involved finding lost hikers and trail runners that wandered too late into the day on a Gorge hike and then were resorting to carefully feeling their way back down the trail while their anxious loved one (who wisely returned to the trail head when the sun showed signs of setting) called 911. These stories also revealed that the only hiking he did was on these rescues. Not a good fit. When he was telling me how much more in shape his teammates were, I was tempted to ask, "Do you have THEIR number?" 

This coffee klatch of two ended when I said I had another "thing" to go to and needed to leave, which he then asked if it was another date. "Well, um, yeah." <smiling sheepishly> Anyway, he wanted to meet again, "Blah, blah, message me on Tinder."

Points deducted:  

• A deduction of 20 points for constantly winking at me to the point that I wanted to ask him if he had something in his eye and did he need to borrow my mirror to get it out. 
• A deduction of 20 points for touching me more often than was comfortable or recommended.  I foresaw future dates filled with me constantly pushing him off of me and telling him to get his hand out of there. 
• A deduction of 20 points for having an occupation that really couldn't be elaborated on. He sorted grain at the ports. Yeah. I got nothin'.
• A deduction of 10 points for giving up interests that would have given him a little more personality: collecting and riding vintage motorcycles. 

I'm Baaaccck. No, really. I Am This Time.

Before I launch into my latest life saga, I just have to say: Blogger has really changed since I last posted. 

So, evidently, I stepped on that space on the board of life that everyone dreads:  Return to Start. After over 4 years of separation, I am back to square one. I'm in the process of a divorce. I'm living back in The House, which we have, happily, in this frenzied housing market, sold before it was even listed, cash, no inspections. It was really a divorcing couple's dream (if there can be such a thing). What isn't a homeless divorcee's dream is the rabidly competitive buyer's market that we profited from a mere month ago. As soon as a place is listed, there are multiple offers on it.  I have resigned myself to the fact that once again I will be renting, raising my son, and single, so yeah. Back to start. Especially for a woman that is edging dangerously close to 50...I mean, 40. Yeah, 40. <cough>

Speaking of single middle-aged women, I'm back at the online dating scene. I'm hoping this will provide some excellent blogging opportunities. I'm thinking of maybe calling it "101 Dates."

I have decided to attack the dating scene with a three-pronged approach. (Yes, I have been too long without sex.) I'm on a phone app called Bumble, which is a bust. I tried Tinder first, but for a hook-up app, there sure were a lot of people that preferred endless chatting to meeting. I did end up with two dates in one night, and shortly thereafter, deleted the app. 

There wasn't much action on Bumble, which is supposed to be a woman-empowered app created by one of the co-founders of Tinder. The concept is good, I think, if it worked. You still do the usual swiping of left or right, and if you swipe right, you sit. And wait. And wait. And wait. Now, I admit initially there were a lot of good looking guys in the beginning, much better selection than Tinder. I was at least swiping right every 20 pictures, rather than my usual one for every 100. However, they still have to match you. And so you continue to wait. And wait...Oh! "You have a bumble in your hive!" so says the app when you finally get a guy to match you. You then have 24 hours to contact THEM. Yeah, there's your twist. That's the part I really like. It dodges the lame "Hey, sweetie," "Sup, babe," "Damn your fine" <sic> messages from your usual trolls. I got a few hive bumbles, and hurriedly contacted them within the 24 hours, before they disappeared from my hive, because you know, time is of the essence on these dating apps. I'll tell you it challenged my wit reserves and powers with the turn of phrase. Most of the guys had little to nothing on their profile, leaving me to riff off their user name or profile photo. Scant material to go on. Nevertheless, I prevailed and speedily sent off my missive. And waited. And waited. Now, once you have messaged them, they stay in your "hive," mocking you. Because they never message back. Yeah. Still waiting, which led me to prong number 2: 

Match.com. Now the problem with match.com is you can do basically nothing but view people. Match.com teases you with telling you 121 people have viewed you, you have 37 winks, you have 20 messages, but every time you go to these options to get your ego stroked, it presents you with their subscription offerings. Up to this point, I was too cheap to lay down the cash. I would do the occasional search, but not see anyone worth subscribing for. Until now--because I have broken down and realized that the adage "Get under someone to get over someone" is probably sage advice. I'm also hoping that this will send out a great big, "Screw you!" (except the other word for screw, the one that has the "F" in it) in that sending-energy-through-the-Universe kind of way, where those waves find their way to your target and give them a great big punch in the balls. *POW*  I digress. 

So I subscribed for 3 months. Lots of views. A few interesting possibilities, but again, endless messaging back and forth. "How's your day?"  "Great how's yours?" "Great! What kind of music do you like?"  "Blah, blah music. What about you?"  "Oh, you know, blah, blah, music. Sometimes blah, blah music, if I'm in the mood." And on and on...zzzzzzzzzzzzz. Not ONE has suggested meeting in person. I've got this regular pen-pal thing going on with one guy, who, when asked if he spoke Italian (due to his username being Live the Dream, but in Italian), replied, "No. I just eat it!"  Yeah. <shaking head>

Third prong:  POF or Plenty of Fish or, as one guy messaged me called it, Plenty of Fudgecicles. A guy, I'll note, that messaged me, I replied, and I haven't heard from him since. Now, POF is what I remember from my previous online dating experiences. Lots of views. Lots of messages. Things are hopping. At least in my mailbox. Again, out of all the messages, and there have been many, ONE guy cut right to the chase and mentioned meeting in person. The rest either dropped off the face of the earth after I messaged back or I've been having this ongoing correspondence with them. Admittedly, I've only been on there for a couple of days, so I could be being a tad impatient. I don't know. Is there now some kind of online dating etiquette that says you shouldn't mention meeting in person until the 20th message or 2 weeks have gone by, whichever comes first? 

Anyway, onward and upward!