Seriously, Abandon All Hope (Part 2)

If you've never had the first-hand experience of using online dating to search for love, you might be rolling your eyes, thinking 'Here she goes again with much ado about nothing -- going on about a few bad first dates. Suck it up, Frosty.' Anyone who's a veteran of internet dating knows I'm not exaggerating the emotional whiplash of this wild ride. Looking for a romantic partner who will be much more than a booty call is an exhausting process when you do it online. Part of the exhaustion comes from trying to recognize the inhabitants of the Nine Circles of internet dating Hell before you make the mistake of going out with them.

In last week's blog, I looked at the first three circles: Limbo, Lust, and Gluttony. This week I examine the middle three circles. We left off at the Fourth Circle of Hell, which, in Dante's Inferno, is filled with the Greedy, including both the avaricious and the wastefully prodigal. But I would use a different word to describe those who dwell in the Fourth Circle of internet dating Hell: the Entitled -- those who believe they are deserving of, or entitled to, certain special privileges because of who they are. You can see it in the highly successful guy who has the attitude that any woman should feel grateful to date him because of his success. Or the entitled hot woman who believes anyone she dates should feel lucky because of her "rare" stunning physical beauty. (Hey, I live in LA, where stunning physical beauty is as common as Starbucks locations.) They're often high maintenance and have an attitude that their needs always come first -- or worse, that their needs are the only ones that matter. 

The Fifth Circle of internet dating Hell is reserved for those consumed by anger. This ring is typified by the Angry Guy, who is disillusioned by intimate romantic relationships in general because he's never adequately processed his angry feelings about previous relationships that went wrong. (His female counterpart is Angry Girl, who can't stop bashing her ex to everyone within earshot.) Angry Guy is resentful not only of his former wives and girlfriends, but of the *entire* female gender. He's the guy who writes disparagingly of women on his dating profile. "I'm just looking for some fun with an attractive, fit, SANE woman until she decides to go loco on me," wrote a guy I not-at-all-sarcastically call "He Seems Nice." Angry Guy often speaks in broad sweeping negative generalizations about women. Yeah, sign me up for some of that shit. 

Heretics -- the ones who go against commonly accepted doctrine -- comprise the Sixth Circle of internet dating Hell. Within the context of online dating, a commonly accepted doctrine is the idea that everyone is looking for that one special partner with whom to spend the rest of one's life. Ha! Tell that to the swingers and the polyamorous, who reject the conventional idea that everyone has one soulmate with whom we naturally, magically pair up. Reading one's online dating messages is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get.

Stay tuned...