I clicked to the page with my next top match on my old dating site and began scanning his profile before confirming the date. He looked nice enough. A Miami man named Dave who liked deep-sea fishing and bowling. There was nothing on his profile that screamed warning, but then again, there usually never was. At least not with the sane ones. I had seen enough profiles in my life to know that they’re never exactly as advertised. Even if their personalities were riddled with trouble, most men were at least competent enough to know what to reveal and what not to reveal on a dating profile. This profile was no different. He knew how to disguise his brand of crazy, whatever it was.
The problem was that Rosie and Cora hadn’t seen the hundreds of online dating profiles that I had. I’d seen them all—good and bad—and I knew how they played out. If they consistently saw all the pitiful profiles that I did, they would share the same pessimism. They would understand that the best and most likely scenario would mean more material for my blog. And this one—I continued scrolling through his profile and descriptions—looked like it would make perfect blog fodder.
I clicked the button to send the confirmation. Now I just had to wait for him to reply. I felt like delving into more matches to find more potential blog suitors, but I remembered my conversation with Cora. Maybe she’s right, maybe it’s not the healthiest approach, I thought. But regardless, the success of my recent post was evidence that I was doing something right.
Instead of looking for more matches, I clicked back to Kindling Dating and to the match that Rosie had found. Gabe.
The smile in his picture sure was charming. It was like he was beaming up at me through the computer screen. His smile was piercing and his emerald eyes locked on me as if he were standing two feet away and making eye contact. I felt the urge to smile back.
I knew that it was dangerous to get too smitten with someone’s online profile picture. Lots of people hide behind a good photo, but evidently there was some reason that Kindling Dating thought that we would make a good match. A perfect match, if that was even possible.
Were their algorithms really capable of assembling the perfect fit? The whole concept of a ‘perfect fit’ in general had always seemed cliché to me. Certainly great fits and happy couples existed. I had seen proof of happy marriages between two people that worked great for each other. But they were never between two people as… particular… as myself. They were always between two nice and pleasant people, not a pair of sarcastic realists, whose best friends also happened to be extremely sarcastic.
For a second I paused and chuckled at the idea of marrying Cora. There’s no doubt it would be intensely amusing, but we would drive each other up the wall.
Although isn’t that the whole idea of marriage, I thought. Find someone that you enjoy enough not to kill when they drive you insane?
I caught myself staring off into space, imagining what a perfect marriage would look like, and I made an effort to refocus. There was research that needed to be done.
I started writing my message to Mr. Bowler.
5
The computer screen glowed against the backdrop of the oncoming evening. The dark blue of the sky as night felt was soft and comforting like a blanket around a child. It was another warm night in Miami and the intense heat of the day had mellowed into a pleasant temperature and the humidity was actually comfortable. On a normal night, my computer screen became the only light in the room and I used it to get lost in my blog.
However, this evening was different. On this particular evening I needed to research and make sure I was prepared for my date. I had gone deep into the conversation that my sister had begun. I was like a student studying over a textbook before a big test; I knew their conversation held valuable information, it was a matter of trying to dissect it and uncover his personality.
The mask that Rosie had assumed while trying to imitate me was hilarious. I had already scanned their conversation several times and had paused frequently to laugh out loud. She either had no idea how to flirt with someone online, or she was too concerned with compensating for my personality that she just sounded absurd. Or more likely, a brutal combination of both.
I wondered if he had also thought she sounded absurd. He seemed to have been receptive though, and we were going on a date, so apparently it wasn't too awful. I kept going back through to re-read various portions of their exchange to make sure I wasn't going to say anything contradictory.
He had initiated the conversation: Hey whats up? I saw your picture and thought you were cute.
Rosie had replied: Hey! You’re not too bad lookin yourself.
Gabe: I usually hover around a 7 on a good day.
Rosie: I guess your picture was taken on an extra good day then.
Gabe: Why? You think I’m looking more like a 7 ½?
Rosie: Maybe even a 7 and ¾ …
I couldn’t help but laugh again. It wasn’t awful but the idea of Rosie flirting like that while her husband looked on was hysterical. She had made an obvious attempt to sound flirty, which worked better on some occasions than others, but overall it wasn’t a terrible effort. It was still weird to imagine Rosie trying so hard to sound like me. Most of their messages were amusing but they were also far from what I would have said. There was still a little too much Rosie seeping through, no matter how hard she had tried to mask it. I sure hope he doesn’t expect me to be this sweet in person, I thought.
At one point he had said; So is this how you usually spend your Saturday nights?
And Rosie had replied with; Idk… I like to switch it up and keep it interesting…
I wanted to slap my sister through the screen. Is that really how she thinks I would have responded to that? It’s a wonder this guy still wants to go on a date with me, I thought.
The conversation got a little better after the topic of sports was introduced and I was immediately glad to see he had brought it up.
Gabe: So you’re a Bluejays fan huh?
Rosie: I’m the biggest Bluejays fan there is!
Again, not how I would have phrased that, but okay sis.
He wrote back; I’d be willing to make a bet on that one. No way you're a bigger fan than me.
Rosie replied with more frivolous banter. She had refrained from interjecting any sort of real sports talk, and I was glad. Knowing Rosie, she would have attempted to sound clever and like she knew what she was talking about, but anyone with an actual understanding of football would have seen right through it. I wondered if Thomas had stepped in and told her to hold back. Most likely, I decided.
The topic of sports trailed off probably after he realized it wasn’t really going anywhere. In person I would have to revive his faith in me as a sports fan, but that was okay. He had transitioned by asking about my work.
He wrote; Ha ha I guess we’ll see. So what do you do for work then?
Rosie wrote back; I’m a writer! What about you?
Gabe: Oh that’s cool! What do you write about? I kind of do some writing for work, too.
Rosie: No way! I write articles, what kind of stuff do you write about?
Gabe: Wow that’s really cool. I’m not actually that much of a writer I guess. I just write code- ha. I own my own business.