write my own premature “thank you”inside my head:
Datey.com, thanks for giving me something to do with my Saturday nights beyond crying over my ex-husband and eating raw cookie dough.
I try to conjure up a good attitude and click on a button labeled “Getting Started.” I create an account and jot down my password on a sticky note, and then I start going through the pages and pages of questions aimed at helping me find that Special Someone.
Name? This is easy. I am Rachel Goldman. I pause for a moment. Maybe I should write Rachel Katz even though I haven’t changed my name back yet? Maybe I should change my name back before I fill this out? I shake my head; I can probably change my profile later, just as I updated my wedding ring this afternoon. I delete and restore my married surname several more times before moving on.
Birthday ?
February 17, 1974
.
Location ? New York City .
Religious Affiliation ? Jew ish . Emphasis on the “ish.”
Status ? It takes me a moment to understand the question, and it isn’t until my cursor hovers over the drop-down menu that I understand. Never married. Separated. Divorced. Looking for friendship. Looking for a relationship. Don’t know.
Don’t know? How could you not know what your past relationship history held? Had you been married or not? What were the possible other options? That you might be separated today, maybe to be divorced by the time someone reads your profile? And who the hell comes to a dating site looking for friends ?
I start to make my way through the various questions. What do I like to do? I like to cook, write, read . . . but these acts seem a bit too tame, too boring. No one is going to jump on a profile that essentially states that I like to live my life in solitude, like a Walt Whitman poem. I look around the apartment for inspiration.
It is easier to say what I don’t like to do: sit on the sofa by myself deep into the evening. Write love notes to my husband that go unanswered. Endure mediation followed by divorce. Yes, that’s a sucky way to spend an afternoon. I’m actually not so much into dating, either, and would love to skip straight to the established relationship, if that is possible.
I decide to come back to the question later, and charge ahead. I can feel myself losing steam with this project; my eyes wander longingly down to the tab that holds my email account—the gateway to my blog and cooking project and people who think I’m funny. My blog is easy. Dating sites are hard.
What kind of food do I like? Finally, questions that call forth my years of carry-out knowledge. I do like Indian food, and I do like standard American fare, and I do like French, very much so. I like sushi, and I like Chinese, and I like coffee, especially if it is served with cinnamon buns that have just come out of the oven so that the icing oozes down the sides. My cursor hovers over the next selection. Japanese. But I just answered ‘Yes, please,’ to sushi. Do they mean tempura? Teriyaki? Everything except raw fish?
I glance down the list. Dumplings have been separated from Chinese food. Falafel has parted from the Middle East . I decide to come back to the food questions.
I skip ahead and see screen after screen filled with questions, most of them unanswerable, at least not in a way that tells the reader anything about me. How you can capture the way my nose scrunches when I hear something I don’t like? That was something Adam always said was his favorite face I made. How can I explain via a check box the sound my jaw makes as it clicks when I stretch it before bed?
Other unphraseable facts: The shape of my hands, the way I sleep on my side, how I am more likely to take the last brownie than offer it to you, how deeply I love, because that seems like the most important point of all for a potential suitor to know: how deeply I love .
I close the screen without completing the form, bypass email and head to the safety of the kitchen, where the
Datey.com, thanks for giving me something to do with my Saturday nights beyond crying over my ex-husband and eating raw cookie dough.
I try to conjure up a good attitude and click on a button labeled “Getting Started.” I create an account and jot down my password on a sticky note, and then I start going through the pages and pages of questions aimed at helping me find that Special Someone.
Name? This is easy. I am Rachel Goldman. I pause for a moment. Maybe I should write Rachel Katz even though I haven’t changed my name back yet? Maybe I should change my name back before I fill this out? I shake my head; I can probably change my profile later, just as I updated my wedding ring this afternoon. I delete and restore my married surname several more times before moving on.
Birthday ?
February 17, 1974
.
Location ? New York City .
Religious Affiliation ? Jew ish . Emphasis on the “ish.”
Status ? It takes me a moment to understand the question, and it isn’t until my cursor hovers over the drop-down menu that I understand. Never married. Separated. Divorced. Looking for friendship. Looking for a relationship. Don’t know.
Don’t know? How could you not know what your past relationship history held? Had you been married or not? What were the possible other options? That you might be separated today, maybe to be divorced by the time someone reads your profile? And who the hell comes to a dating site looking for friends ?
I start to make my way through the various questions. What do I like to do? I like to cook, write, read . . . but these acts seem a bit too tame, too boring. No one is going to jump on a profile that essentially states that I like to live my life in solitude, like a Walt Whitman poem. I look around the apartment for inspiration.
It is easier to say what I don’t like to do: sit on the sofa by myself deep into the evening. Write love notes to my husband that go unanswered. Endure mediation followed by divorce. Yes, that’s a sucky way to spend an afternoon. I’m actually not so much into dating, either, and would love to skip straight to the established relationship, if that is possible.
I decide to come back to the question later, and charge ahead. I can feel myself losing steam with this project; my eyes wander longingly down to the tab that holds my email account—the gateway to my blog and cooking project and people who think I’m funny. My blog is easy. Dating sites are hard.
What kind of food do I like? Finally, questions that call forth my years of carry-out knowledge. I do like Indian food, and I do like standard American fare, and I do like French, very much so. I like sushi, and I like Chinese, and I like coffee, especially if it is served with cinnamon buns that have just come out of the oven so that the icing oozes down the sides. My cursor hovers over the next selection. Japanese. But I just answered ‘Yes, please,’ to sushi. Do they mean tempura? Teriyaki? Everything except raw fish?
I glance down the list. Dumplings have been separated from Chinese food. Falafel has parted from the Middle East . I decide to come back to the food questions.
I skip ahead and see screen after screen filled with questions, most of them unanswerable, at least not in a way that tells the reader anything about me. How you can capture the way my nose scrunches when I hear something I don’t like? That was something Adam always said was his favorite face I made. How can I explain via a check box the sound my jaw makes as it clicks when I stretch it before bed?
Other unphraseable facts: The shape of my hands, the way I sleep on my side, how I am more likely to take the last brownie than offer it to you, how deeply I love, because that seems like the most important point of all for a potential suitor to know: how deeply I love .
I close the screen without completing the form, bypass email and head to the safety of the kitchen, where the
Similar Books
