1st Internet Date...Ever

Everyone's doing it.  So I am too.  No, I'm not talking about blogging, I'm talking about online dating.  I fought it.  I wanted to meet a guy in a bar as god intended (this is a stolen line, but I don't know who to attribute it to).  But it wasn't happening…the meeting the guy in the bar. So…

First I tried Nerve.  An ex-boyfriend of mine had success with this site, so I thought I'd give it a try.  The first guy I met, we'll call him Benny, was odd.  After emailing for a bit, we moved to the next level and spoke on the phone.  The first hour of conversation (yes, that's a long time) he kept making references that were really odd:  That I hadn't mentioned having a dog (it was on my profile page), or he would start a story and stop and say, "but I told you that already"  (we hadn't done THAT much emailing).  But I stayed on the phone because it was kind of fascinating.  Then we were suddenly discussing how one decides whether to contact someone or not.  What is it on the person's profile that makes you wink, email or navigate away?  Benny noted that sometimes everything looks great, but just one little thing makes you say NO.  He said, "take for example the picture of you in the skirt all scrunched down in a chair, that could have made me navigate away."  At this moment I realized that for the past hour, Benny thought he'd been talking to someone else.  Not to me.  No picture of me in a chair is on my profile.  I certainly would NOT post a picture of me "scrunched down in a chair."  So I swallowed my laughter and explained that I wasn't who he thought I was.  He didn't understand.  I said, there is no such picture on my profile.  He said I was wrong.  That I couldn't see the picture correctly because of how I was viewing it.  (A picture I uploaded to the site?  I couldn't see it properly?)   I insisted and finally convinced him to look at my profile page.  Of course he had to get off the phone and check through his iPhone - Benny doesn't pay for internet at home.  He said that he's just online all day wasting his time and not writing if he has access at home…  Anyway, I was sure he wouldn't call back.  But he did.  He admitted that he had thought he was talking to someone he went on one date with.  And then he was a completely different person for the second hour.  I guess he really didn't like the other woman.  So why he was spending time on the phone with "her" if he didn't like her?  I have no idea. 

So after this inauspicious start, we decided to meet for sushi.

All through dinner I kept thinking, "could I be interested in this guy?"  "Stay open."  At the end of dinner and many a far-out and strange story (it seems that he'd had a massage earlier that day and half way through the session the massuse was on the table he was massaging her?) Benny said, "I'm not really in a place in my life where I can consider being in a relationship."  I said, "It's strange that you're on a dating site then."  He said he was lonely.  Which I understand.  But it's weird false advertising.  His page said he was looking for a short term or long term relationship.  We split the bill.  I insisted.  He walked me to my car and then tried to linger and kiss me, but I dashed away because someone was waiting for my parking space (thank god).

1st internet date over.  Would there be more?  Oh yes, there would be … more.  But never with Benny.  The last I heard from him was an email after that first and last date asking for the contact information of my herbalist.