Adult ballet: dancing ballet with a mullet

Getting back to my series of posts on adult ballet…hooray!

In a spurt of it’sgottocomeoffrightnowRIGHTNOW, I went to the local cheap salon last Sunday and got 6-7 inches chopped off of my head, and had bangs added. What I forgot to consider is that now I am consigned to attending ballet class with a mullet, thanks to the layers on the back of my head. I also have about 5-6 small hair clips gathered around the front of my head, in a futile effort to keep the bangs in place. There are little tufts of hair sticking out all over the place.

A few years back, when I was also dealing with a relatively short ‘do, my ballet teacher told me: there is a little curl on the back of your head. By the amount it bounces around at barre, I’ll be able to tell whether you are actually holding your upper body correctly or not. The moral of the story is that short hair/layered hair/bangs don’t make for the best ballet ‘do.

Some advice for gentlemen seeking love online

First order of business: Washington. A good guy, clearly respectful and decent, no complaints here. But there was NO spark. Not even a sad little fizzle. He just seemed…old. And actually, he was no older than anyone I’ve ever dated, but he was just…so…fixated on how old he was. And he clearly wanted to just GET MARRIED AND GET IT OVER WITH which is not very attractive. But he was nice. The final but: but I think neither he nor I want to take this further. It was an amicable date. And that’s all it was.

Roomie has been prodding me regularly to keep going with it, though I have taken 3 or 4 day breaks from checking my account. Having been at it for almost a month now, though, I would like to submit a few suggestions to men attempting the rather chancy venture of online dating:

1. Have a photo on your profile. I mean, not to be shallow here, but why would I show you my photo and then be OK with no photo on yours? Fair’s fair, right? I also understand that there is a high correlation between a lack of photo on dating profiles and that person being involved in infidelity.
2. In said photo, avoid: pictures where half your face is covered by a beer bottle, beer mug, or other alcoholic beverage. Where you are clearly drunk. Pictures of you with your buds, being manly. No cross-dressing…it troubles me. And cats. I have come across a shocking number of pictures where men have posed with their cats. Occasionally the cat is being cuddled…other times the cat is…just there. Plopped on the couch, clearly disgruntled. Is this supposed to be some sort of clever innuendo about vagina? Why are there no dog/fish/turtle photos? What’s with the cats? Are you trying to get in with the future cat ladies of the world?
3. Be more specific in your self-description. “I’m a fun guy looking for a nice girl” is not going to get any responses, especially if it’s coupled with no photo.
4. Don’t put yourself down in your profile. Such as, “I could stand to lose a few pounds” or “I’m not having much success out there.” And saying that you’re cynical and sarcastic 3+ times in one profile might worry a prospective date. On the other hand, baldly declaring that you are handsome and attractive with no modest qualifier is also hrm-inducing.
5. Be unique; pretty much everyone will say that they like to travel, like to go out and try new things, eat, yadda yadda yadda, but what makes you unique? Anecdotes are great here. “Once, while I was tagging caribou in Siberia…”
6. Spelling. Grammar can be tricky, I grant you, but SPELLING. How hard is it to spell “beautiful”?

Alright, I’ve said my piece. Back to sifting through the profiles…not that I’m a great catch at all, but I don’t believe the people who say that chemistry.com doesn’t hook you up with enough matches. There are 60some sitting in my account. And I’m quite ordinary, in appearance and presentation. So overall this is working out well, in terms of options. But I’m still going to give Plenty of Fish a spin, once this subscription runs out.

And ballet…yes, still going. More ballet posts soon.

Watch out, men of the world! pt. 3: a date, a date, a very important date

The 1-2-3 process in chemistry.com is somewhat cumbersome, I think, but necessary. I do like being able to draw the process out, to get a sense of where this person is coming from: first, a survey of general criteria of what he/I value in a relationship, then short answers (“what would you take with you to a desert island?”), and then email and a meeting. So I worked through it and met my first match today for tea!

Men of the world, watch out! pt. 2: Chemistry.com survey

After my dismaying encounter with eharmony, I went to chemistry.com, which I understand to be an offshoot of match.com. I have heard mixed things about match.com itself; I do know at least one couple that met on that site, but it seems rather meat market-ish. I understand it’s more inclined towards casual dating than serious relationships per se, and so chemistry.com is match.com’s bid to take over some of eharmony’s share of that “serious relationship” market. So I gave chemistry.com a shot.

Watch out, men of the world! Also: eharmony fail

I have always been a climb-back-on-the-horse person. (Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. So says Einstein.)

So: at the urging of two of my closest, oldest friends–one of whom is in a happy relationship because of this–I am giving online dating a shot. My expectations are actually quite low. Non-existent, really, in terms of real romance and a real relationship. At this point in time, I still can’t imagine anyone but you-know-who in my life. On the other hand, I am still hesitant about accepting his overtures of restarting the relationship. So my mental interest in finding a new boyfriend or man-love is…low. To nil. But, as my friend and advisor (let’s call her Belle) suggests, it’s a good way to make friends, and it’s better to go into it hoping to make friends than to find a soulmate.

Two nights ago I gave eharmony a spin. I had given a gift membership to my mother a year ago, and she did not care for it at all (“too many ugly people”). But I liked their whole compatibility business, and it seems like a very earnestly put together enterprise, although I find their model couples in their commercials kind of annoying. So I sat down and with the help of my roomie finished their hour-long survey. And out of 12 million members? I had seven. Seven matches. Seriously? I had heard that if you are a highly educated woman, eharmony can be rough on you. Very rough. But…seven! Deleted my trial run account. Stat.

Roomie also observed that it seems like eharmony is trying to find a match who is as much like me as possible. This is bad, very bad.

Moreover, one thing that I thought was interesting was that eharmony matched me with all Asian men; I like Asian men well enough, but…really? ALL of them were Asian? Weird.

Next post: tentative success, in finding a decent dating site.

p.s. I found a good ballet teacher! Huzzah!