When I got back from Christmas, I was reading 'The Rosie project' and I decided to copy the protagonist's scientific approach to love and message my highest match on OkCupid.
Of course, I should have read the end of the book to understand that there are no perfect scientific matches when it comes to love and that love finds you by chance...
If you want to read the book, this is not a spoiler, you know from the title that he is going to end up with Rosie... They should have named it 'The Wife Project', it would have maintained the suspense until the end... anyway it is still the best book I've read this year and it is definitely worth reading it...
Back to my story, I found my highest match on OkCupid in Brighton, 89% match but... she was not my type...
She seems a bit cold and distant from the pictures. In one of her pictures, she reminded me of someone I know that has a facial expression of constantly smelling a fart (The use of 'fart-smelling' to label some a bit snooty comes from my friend the zombie M&M).
However, I firmly believe in science and psychological tests (after all, are what I do for a living.... ) and pictures might not always reflect reality, so I send her a message. I was still not too convinced about meeting her, but it turned out that she was living with ... let's call him Mike, a quirky nice guy that went to class with me in my first year at Sussex.
If she was a friend of Mike, she should be a cool person, so I agreed to meet her at the White Rabbit.
When the day came, I wanted to cancel... I was looking for an excuse, anything to not go and pretend that online dating is a natural way to meet people, anything to avoid the awkward experience of meeting a stranger in that uncomfortable situation that I've been in several times with bad outcomes...
I was not feeling like making an effort but finally, I pushed myself to go...We were meeting at the White Rabbit but ended up in the same coffee place where I met Lilly and the American runaway married girl (for a change)..... The waitresses might think that I am some kind of serial dater lesbian or something... judging from this blog, it might actually be the truth...
She arrived late, I supposed that arriving late was part of her persona as she looked and acted like a star diva from a black & white film noir... When I saw her, I thought that she was possibly the most beautiful girl that I have ever seen.... it was classical beauty, there is a difference between attraction and beauty. Tinderella was attractive, but not particularly beautiful...
When I saw her, I realized that I'd seen her before in town, after all, there are not that many tall ginger girls in Brighton that dress in 50's vintage clothes, Brighton is a small town... I remember seeing her passing by on North Street and I thought that she checked me out...... but that must have been a year a go or so as I don't catch the bus on North Street anymore...
Back to the date... It was possibly the best and worst first date that I had in a very long time.... the worst because she was making all of the questions and comments that you are not supposed to make on a first date.
She asked me if I had any illegal addiction (what kind of question is that on a first date?). She also told me about her sob story and hospital experiences and about her special connection with her mother.... which is also something that you shouldn't tell on a first date to a stranger as it sounds a bit like Norman Bates on Psycho..... Don't get me wrong, I have a good relationship with my mother, but I think that bringing that up as a topic of a conversation on a first date with a stranger sounds weird...
The worst thing was when she called me a 'small person'.... well, I am not a tall person either but I won't say that I am a 'small' one. Does 6'3 (160 cm) for women qualify for being called a small person? Her comment made me feel as if I was some kind of a dwarf or something... I guess it was not her intention, I justified all of these wrong questions and comments due to the fact that she said that she spend a very long time in a hospital and perhaps, her social skills and interactions with people maybe were a bit.... undeveloped or... just different from the average person...
AH! I just remember that she also said that she was going to have babies within the next 5 years!!! Brilliant comment to make on a first date, your fertility agenda for your near future..... although for some reason I suppose that it is a very lesbian topic of conversation...
ALSO! She said at some point something like: "people YOUR age". She clearly called me old....!!! She was only 3 years younger... OK, I am 28, but I think that I am still young..... It is true that maybe I have a bit of a Peter Pan complex as I still live in a student house with 5 other people, but well,... this is the price I pay for having changed my career from marketing manager to doctoral student...
All of the 'worst' balanced out with the 'best' of the date. Despite not being my type and all of her inappropriate comments, I thought that in a way, we connected.
We both knew what it is to be stuck in a bad health situation. That kind of experience impacts your life and, I guess that finding someone that shares that with you, enhances your kinship with them and gives you a strange feeling of connection.
It was also the best date I had in a while because she was a 'believer'. She believed in love truthfully and during the date, she was narrating stories about people that found love... She was a good storyteller and a 'believer' and that compensated all of the rest.
I think that believing truthfully in something is what makes you being able to find it. Only people who believe in love find love... 'Skepticals' will be always waiting for something else, but 'believers' will create their own story...
Was I ready to believe and create my own story with another believer? I felt that I was stuck in the motto from the famous X-Files Mulder's office poster that said: 'I want to believe', I was feeling more like an 'in-betweener', someone who really wants to believe in love, but not feeling love stops you from believing in love and not believing in love stops you from finding love..... so I was feeling stuck in a circle and perhaps, it was time to break the pattern, Could a 'believer' be the key to break the circle.... ???
The first date had its 'good' and 'bads' that I thought that I would have time to balance them carefully and decide if she was worth a second date. However, when we were leaving, I said something about her ride home and she misunderstood me and thought that I was asking her out for a second date... so I didn't argue and went with the flow...(She had hearing aids in both ears....).
There was a second date, and she took me to a posh restaurant.
The funny thing is that during the whole date, I was trying to remember from were did I know the lesbian-looking waitresses... she clearly recognized me and we had an awkward moment of 'hey! I know you....!' but I didn't say anything as I was with my date... Where did I know her from? She was clearly a lesbian, and in Brighton, I know a lot...
Do I know her from an internet site?... I think that I would have remembered that... Where did I know her from....?
Finally, two days later it hit me.... she was working in the same building as me when I was working in marketing about two years ago now. She was the mail girl... it's funny how you take someone out of their context and your mind is unable to recognize the person...
Back to the date.... during the second date, despite being distracted trying to remember where did I know the waitress from, we had time to talk a bit more. She was telling me about her work and career projects and I was trying to find the connection that I thought we had on the first date.... but somehow it was not there...
There was something about her that whenever our eyes would meet she would look away... Was it shyness or did she simply didn't like me?
The second date left me with mixed feelings... After that, we didn't have much 'alone' time. Our third date was 'cinema with friends.... and our fourth date was her Birthday party, so she was surrounded by people all the time... at that party, whenever I was trying to talk to her and join her group of conversation, she would somehow find an excuse to go somewhere else and walk away.
I came to the conclusion that she didn't like me at all... not even like a friend as she avoided me all night.... but then... why did she invite me to her Birthday in the first place?
After her Birthday we kept in touch so I asked her to come by my house for a 'game night' with my housemates and some other friends.
We do game nights every now and then and I thought that it was a good opportunity to spend more time with her and see if there was something or if we were going to be just friends...
One hour after she arrived with Mike, she said that she was tired and needed to go home.... leaving her housemate Mike at the 'game night'...
OK, right! now it all makes sense, it was obvious that her friend Mike liked my beloved gay housemate from the night we went to the cinema and therefore, she invited me to her Birthday to get them together.... too bad that my gay friend was out of town that night.... now everything started to make sense.... but then.... why did she ask me to go out for dinner again by message? I was confused...
A couple of weeks later we finally met up again, only the two of us, it was a good opportunity to see if her only interest in meeting me was due to my handsome French gay housemate.
We went to the beach for coffee the two of us and it was nice... but again, after about one hour she had to leave.... and then, it took us a while to get back in touch... I hate to leave things unfinished so possibly under the bad influence of a gay man, I asked her through WhatsApp about what was happening...
I wanted to talk to her in person, but it seem impossible to find a suitable time for both to meet up and in the meantime several weeks had passed since our first date... I send her a cute 'make-it-or break-it' message, with a movie reference included, asking her if she thought of me as something else or just friends...
I know that this is the kind of message that you should not send to someone that you met online but well,... I wanted to know if she was interested... I think that in a way, I knew the answer already.... she was not interested in me.... but I wanted to believe, I think that I was more interested in her because she was a 'believer' and a good storyteller than anything else...
I wanted her to convince me that love exists with her stories, and perhaps create the perfect plot for a book or movie: "The highest scientific match turns into love...." but my attempt to trust science to find me love ended with a WhatsApp message with the words 'but let's be friends....' which of course it is just what people always say but never actually happen...
Now I know, after finishing 'The Rosie Project' and my own experience with online dating that your highest match on a website might not be your other half...
Perhaps, I need to do like the protagonist in the book and ask out the first girl that walks through my door, that might be the way to find my Rosie.... but again... 'The Rosie Project' is a fiction book and stories like that don't happen in real life.... Or is it that not believing that those stories could happen in real life makes you not have those kinds of stories in your life?
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