A Love Letter to First Dates

When you're a woman using an online dating website, you get *a lot* of messages from guys. All of my single female friends confirm that's been their experience. For a single woman, it seems like having interest from a lot of guys would be a dating panacea, but that's not the case at all. Most of the men are too something: too old, too young, too married, too uninteresting, too encumbered by life's messy circumstances, too geographically undesirable, etc. It's an embarrassment of faux riches -- emphasis on embarrassment -- all that male interest. Think of it like this: Online dating is like having cable tv. You get 500 channels, but only three are interesting enough to actually watch.

July was the month of the long-distance suitor. And when I say 'long-distance,' I don't mean guys who live 30 miles away in another part of LA. I mean long-ass-distance, like Arizona, Italy, and Denmark. I don't understand why a man would waste his time writing me a long thoughtfully composed message expressing his interest in me when there's almost no chance it could evolve into something local and real. Winning the lottery seems more likely. Of course, they may be looking for *only* an epistolary romance that plays out over the course of many emails. That may be all their messy life circumstances will allow. 

An epistolary romance might work for some people, but I'm not one of them. Although I adore highly verbal men and appreciate a well written letter, I want the angsty, butterflies-in-the-stomach experience of a real first date. I want the smile and the direct eye contact. I want the awkward pauses in the conversation because you're too gobsmacked by each other to be able to think in words. I want the spontaneous jokes that erupt organically during the evening. I want the not-knowing whether he's going to kiss me at the end of the date. I want the unexpected euphoria that comes when you realize you feel a real connection. Even with all of my many awful first dates, I'd gamble on a first date over a love letter any day.