I Love You, Let’s Meet

The enterprising Wayan has blogged a breakdown of DC residents dating on fastcupid.com. (He calls it “salon personals,” but as a DC resident who heard me on Diane Rehm just this very afternoon wrote to me, what I was calling “nerve” also has people who got on via salon, actforlove, the Onion, etc. Since I rather hate what’s become of the site since fastcupid brought it in September 2005, I don’t want to help with its branding, but I’m trying to be accurate here.)

So, back to the DC online daters. I was cheered to see Men Seeking Women: 4,303 and Women Seeking Men: 2,744. I lived there 1991-2000 and I just KNEW all the alarmist statistics weren’t true. You would constantly hear “There are 13 single women for every single man in DC,” and I’d be like, What are you talking about: It’s the city of class presidents, ferchrissake. DC probably has more gay men than gay women, so maybe things are a bit skewed, but not 13-to-1 skewed.

An even bigger gender surprise, though, is among the 2-men couples seeking a third person. 62 of those couples seek a man, OK, that’s your frisky gay guys for you. But 384 2-men couples are seeking a woman!!! Who are you guys? Straight men figuring they’ll isolate the kinky women? Gay men trying to retrain themselves a la the Christian right? Bisexuals? Y Tu Mama Tambien fans? Is it a thing from porn? I thought one man and multiple ladies was the porn thing.

Younger men are way more comfortable with bisexuality than the over-40s, I’ve noticed, so maybe it’s all young’uns. Would anyone like to be my DC intern and answer some of these ads and find out?

the quote about turning off potentials by taking your snake or cat to the park is definitely my favorite part of this article about pet-lovers’ sites.

I had no idea that these sites sometimes combine with pet-breeding sites. Mightn’t it be awkward to watch your dogs hump on a first date?

In personal pet news, I’m down to one cat, Linus, the striped one in my author photo. (I’m thinking about shaving him to get some media attention a la Britney.) I gave my other cat, who tended to smack Linus around, to my friend Alexander, and they’re bonding up a storm. Now I find myself wanting a French bulldog, or some mutt approximation thereof. I’m thinking of a little batface dog as a reward for when I sell my second book. Then I’ll be around the apt. a lot, and walkies are such good writing procrastinations.

Virginia was on the Diane Rehm Show on Valentine’s Day! If you didn’t tune in, you can listen to it here (podcast also available!). During her DC trip great forces conspired against our intrepid friend. Still, she managed to make time to get together with friends and helped dig a certain smarty pants’ car out of solid ice!

Check out this awesome cake that Diane made! She’s also a filmmaker and the director of ILYLM, The Musical!

The PUAs (pick-up artists) are storming online dating. I recognized the acronym and the terms in the headline from Neil Strauss’s “The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists,” which is leather-bound with a cloth ribbon bookmark, just like a bible. It’s hilarious and pathetic, about nerdy guys who develop a system to bag “HBs” (hot babes). The writer, skinny, pale, bald Strauss, had good luck with the techniques and was swept up into their subculture for several years, even living in a group house of PUAs.

Jan. 31 I saw my book next to The Game on the Valentine’s Day table of Barnes and Noble in Park Slope, Brooklyn. It was my first glimpse of my book in a bookstore and as I stared, I started an imaginary dialogue between the two. My book said, “you think I’m falling for THAT line?” and The Game said “I don’t care, you’re not a stripper or a model.” And my book said, OK, and they coexist in peace.

Six years ago, I went to Eve Ensler’s big V-Day celebration in Madison Square Garden, featuring all kinds of great actresses performing the Vagina Monologues. (Rosie Perez got “My vagina is angry,” which is really fun to say in a Rosie Perez accent.) From the V-day web site:

V-Day’s mission is simple. It demands that the violence must end. It proclaims Valentine’s Day as V-Day until the violence stops. When all women live in safety, no longer fearing violence or the threat of violence, then V-Day will be known as Victory Over Violence Day.

I found the show ridiculous in parts, but uplifting and exciting and basically a good idea in that nutty-ambitious Eve Ensler way. Violence against women is depressingly common and stays that way partly because victims often keep quiet, so hearing women shout about it in a sports arena was thrilling, empowering, all that good stuff. As I was enthusing about the event to a good male friend of mine, he grumbled, “Why’s she trying to co-opt Valentines Day for enmity between men and women?”

Good point, which hadn’t occurred to me because, well, I hate the holiday. I don’t even like it those years I have a boyfriend. I don’t think romantic love is exactly neglected in this culture the other 364 days of the year: It and parental love are really the only sanctioned forms.
I wonder what my friend would think about this take on the holiday , which I rather like too. Maybe he’ll write in and say. [Update, he did, see LKIA below, and various other great responses.]

Then, many degrees removed from the peace poem AND Eve Ensler approaches, comes this V-jacking by neocaveman Grant Adams (it even SOUNDS like a name from the Flintstones). From the press release for his program for men to “wildly attract” women:

The creator of the Net2Bed-Net2Wed Internet Dating System (Net2Bed-Net2Wed.com) reminds guys that Valentine’s Day originated in Roman times as a festival called “Lupercalia” where young women eagerly put their names into a box. Each young man then pulled a name from the box, and the woman he chose would be his to cavort with for a day, a week or even a year.

“Now THAT’s a Holiday!” says Adams.

“Men need to know that Internet Dating is our modern day Lupercalian box. Your average guy can just reach into a dating site and pull out any one of a million beautiful, eager, and eligible women who are actively searching for men right now. The problem is that 99% of men do it wrong. They don’t know how to stand out online, or capture a woman’s imagination. So, they end up sitting at home alone or haunting bars, empty-handed at the end of the night.”

Sigh. More confused masculinity slathered with New Age empowerment and a weird laziness (I want to do the selecting but not the courting) — sort of like the Pick-Up Artists and the Tom Cruise character in Magnolia. Everybody thinks if they’re the ones doing the choo-choo-choosing, then they never have to be poor Ralph Wiggums. So stupid to make it a gender issue; feeling “powerless and invisible” sucks for women, too, it doesn’t make us feel good or “authentic” to have to wait to be picked by someone we might not want.
Between these three, I can see lots of hilarious V-Day collisions.

Peacenik with flower: “Hey, have a peaceful holiday.”

Grant Adams acolyte: “Don’t tell me what to do, little lady, I’m the decider.” [grabs peacenik by hair, drags her toward cave]
Eve Ensler: “Unhand her! Brutes like you are why we had to take over V-Day!” [cartoon ball of dust fight; everybody goes home disappointed in their holiday hopes]
As Etienne points out below, I think the safest thing might be to just make this V-Day Virginia Vitzthum Day and celebrate by buying my book.

From a HuffPo reader; congratulations H_________!

I am ecstatic to tell the world, or at least those who are reading this, that I did find the love of my life on Cupid.com. It is one of the most natural, happy relationships of my life and I will spend the rest of my life with this man.
I had tried two other sites, Yahoosingles.com and Match.com with very little success. Sure, I emailed a few men but they were not really available.
As I entered my profile for what was going to be the last time, I said to myself, “this is the one that is going to work” Also, “I will not do this ever again if it doesn’t work out”.
Luckily, it did work out and we are still going strong at 5 months together.
We met at Chili’s where we shared a great meal and I talked a lot out of sheer nervousness. After wards, I thought to myself “Who knows if I’ll get this chance again”, so we made out in the parking lot for 2 hours. It was incredible and very tempting to go a step further. We waited until our next date a few days later and declared our love for each other over Thanksgiving. I’m dieting to fit into a really great wedding dress!!!
Lucky in Love,

My new big-sister blog HuffPo is helping me solicit stories

Here’s the first one that came in, it’s sweet. And makes me grateful that I’ve never discussed “extremities” with any date, on- or offline.

I met my husband online in 1997. I had moved 2500 miles for a job, had a 7 year old son, and hated the bar scene with a burning passion. I worked full-time so didn’t have much time for hobby clubs, etc., which led me to try an online dating service. Of course the only friend I’d made at that point mocked me endlessly, but I figured I didn’t have anything
lose so tried a trial.

Tackling the profile was soul-wrenching, especially since I’m not a 110
pound Barbie, but I figured I’d be honest and hope for the best. I chose
a username that I thought was appropriate (veryindependent) and put
myself on the cyber dating scene. I received seven or responses, all of
which I answered. I met three of them in real life, the last of which
was my husband. I think that I avoided some of the common pitfalls
because I was honest, because I’m not terribly aesthetically pleasing,
and because if they didn’t have perfect punctuation I was immediately
suspicious.

I remember the first contact my husband made. I read the email and
thought, “Someone has stepped on this poor man’s heart!” He was
endearingly self-depracating and had a dry sense of humor. He didn’t
mention the size of his extremities, nor did he inquire as to the size
of mine. He was happy to talk on the phone when I offered it, and he
didn’t hesitate to meet in real life so I wasn’t worried that he had
something to hide.

Our first date we had dinner and spent an hour in Barnes and Noble
browsing books, and I knew that I liked him very much. On our second
date we went to the arboretum and he cheerfully helped me find and read the signs on each and every tree, and I was hooked.

We now have a five year old son together and I can’t imagine anything
ever breaking us up. And my friend who made fun of me? Happily married to someone she met through the same site! I don’t know if I would do it now, there are too many horror stories of people who are deceitful and dishonest, not to mention just looking to talk dirty, but it was the best decision I could have made ten years ago.

Ms. C_________, you’ve won yourself a signed book! Thanks for writing.

and you can attend in your PJs!

If you like it, please visit YouTube (you can also click on the movie after it’s done to get there) and comment and rate it and pass it on (very easy to register).

I hope you like it. It was so fun to make, and I love having creative, talented friends who can whip up a little movie in a week: M. David Hornbuckle (he really does have a ukelele!) and Mary Myers and Diane Bernard (who’s making a great documentary that doesn’t have a website yet) and Claire Kirk and Esin Egit.

I’m reminded of this guy I met on nerve about a year and a half ago because my friend’s about to go on a date with him. (There’s been full disclosure all around, he said nice things about me, it’s all cool.) He’s smart and funny and attractive, one of the 90 percent of my connections formed online who seemed almost-good-enough in person.

Over years of online dating, I have very few horror stories — and zero happy endings. No A’s (for more than two weeks anyway) and hardly any F’s, D’s or even C’s.

Why the bell curve at B+?

Am I just really good at reading the profiles by now, so I land close to the target?

Do B+ people generally stick with online dating? Am I a B+ person?

Or does online dating turn you into someone who sees B+ people everywhere because it’s what you’re looking for? Does it make us all think “I can do better” and keep finding fault?

All of the above, probably. But, anyway, this one B+ guy, let’s call him Al, really just delivers the punchline of the story from a year and a half ago: It stars the only online guy I ever set up with an RL friend. “Jonathan” and “Susan” are feisty and I thought they’d like enjoy sparring. I was wrong. They both felt picked on.

Before the date, I’d made the e-faux pas of clipping something Jonathan, Jewish, wrote and sending it to Susan, gentile, because I thought it was funny, about an author with a glamorous print persona: “Of course in person she’s a rodential Jewess.”

So after the bad date where they both felt attacked, he and Susan started e-bickering and she chided him for that remark (which made me do all kinds of cringing as he now knew *I’d* cut and pasted from his e-mail). She declared his description of the author “worthy of Goebbels.”

They made it to Nazi-comparison after ONE DATE. It even took Max and Fitz a few days. So my only attempt to yenta fellow online daters was a disaster, and it happened right before my first date with Al. I told him the exchange, and he said, and I loved him then, “Maybe she meant gerbils.”