Online Dating Failure, The Teenage Years

I've recently taken a chance with an online dating website in hopes to find the man of my dreams. Mister perfect. The gallant that will serenade at my window and take me away to some far away happy bubble land where we will live ever-after. And he will tell me how amazing and beautiful I am every single moment while bathing me in a thousand sunflowers and dark chocolate M&Ms a day...

...Or to at least to meet somebody that will be more compatible with me than the guy standing at the end of the bar, chugging his Budweiser and high-fiving his fellow douche-bag friends. Four months and multiple failed potentials later, I've realized that I just may have better luck with mister Budweiser hi-fiver. 

Although website dating is still fairly new to me, this isn't my first time using the good ol' WWW to date. In fact, I find it much too easy to date online now compared to my first online dating encounter when I was a freshman in high school, at age 15. Match.com was just sparking around the globe, and Matchmaker.com, the first online dating website, was bringing singles together since the 80s. I can't imagine how long it took to find a true match off of dial-up Prodigy in 1980 something, but I'm assuming it wasn't as efficient as now.

 Being a young teen and not ready to open an account and create a singles profile just yet, I stumbled onto a boy my age via a chatroom. Yes, a chatroom. A room where everybody and anybody can have a conversation until some adolescent thought it was funny to enter the room and hit the same buttons a thousand times. The only reason I know chatrooms exist today in 2013 is because my uncle still goes into them to cause chaos over topics such as sports, music, and politics. He'll scream about the people in the chatroom for an entire week, as if he lost an entire room full of friends.

My online dating experience was short-lived as a teen, but the effort was more than posting a few pictures, throwing on a profile summary, and wa-la, your inbox is full of possible dates. Mine took weeks of waiting, phone calling, and finally meeting a month later. James, my first online date encounter, decided to talk to me in a private chatroom, where we could discuss more serious things, such as music and...whatever it is that 15 year old teens discuss in private chat rooms. Had I copied and pasted the chat, it probably would've gone something like this:

James55: Hi ReneeDia! I'm hanging out with my friends. You seem cool!

ReneeDia: Hi! And hi, friends of James55! You seem cool, too! What are ya'll doing?

James55: Just watching some music videos on M2. We're gonna play N64 then walk around Walmart.

ReneeDia: That's cool! I'm listening to some music in my room. I'm so bored!

James55: Do you want to talk before we play videogames? What's your phone number?

This was before texting. Before LOL's and WTF's. Before people hesitated to pick up the phone and just talk. It feels awkward now to actually dial a number and call somebody. As if talking on the phone is taboo now that IMs and texts and Facebook chats have taken over our voices. Life, before smart phones and super easy access to the internet, was challenging and fun. Waiting for a phone call or a letter in the mail gave a sense of anticipation, of exhilaration, that rarely occurs in an instant response-or-bust-world. 

James calls.
We talk. And after a week of talking it was time to discuss future plans, such as when we'd be able to sneak a peak of what each other look like. This required some extra time. Was he worth it? Of course he was! He was my first online dating lover ever! Somebody I'd meet for an hour and wouldn't think about for the next fifteen years!

Sending pictures wasn't as easy as snapping a few photos, throwing some cheap filters in to block out insecurities, and sending it a few minutes later in hopes he likes what he sees. This required begging a friend to take various pictures of me hanging out around my house with a Walgreens-bought disposable camera. I sat on the floor, at my table, and on the bottom of my stairs.
I looked left. *snap!*
I looked down, smiling a cute smile. *snap!*
I wrapped my arms around my chest, looking in the distance in an unsure pose with a sweater on, a "My So-Called Life" impression. *snap!*
I finished off the 24 exposure roll with random shots of my dog, my mom, and my backyard and ran back to Walgreens only to wait until Monday for my pictures to process. Waiting done, I include my three best pictures and a page and a half letter with a seemingly nonchalant attitude, when in reality I rewrote that letter three times.

His letter comes in the mail.
It's the same length as mine of scribble, and inserted is a single 4x6 picture. Shirt off, long blonde hair down just above his shoulders, and there's a flash from the mirror's reflection that leaves me thinking...I think I see his face? I think he's hot! I'm in love! Mind you, about as in love as a teeny innocent teen can be. 

We meet.
Two weeks later we finally meet in Austin. He's from Shertz, Texas, and I'm on my way to Austin from San Antonio. My father drops me off at the mall...along with my younger brother and neighbor, both overprotective boys. My two bodyguards escort me to the entrance, where James is waiting for me. He's just like in the picture, except...his heavy acne has his face sagging off his skull, his long blonde hair's in knots and obviously hadn't been washed that week, and he's tall and lanky and awkward.
And I have an hour-long romantic stroll around the mall with this thing.

Had I actually enjoyed James's company, I would've minded my brother and neighbor peeking and sneering at every corner of the mall and every store entrance. But James was not my type, whatever my type was half a lifetime ago. We had nothing to talk about except the weather inside the mall. 

After my first online dating experience, I vowed to never date outside my visible surrounding area outside the web, until I became older and dating potentials became scarce. How funny it would be stumble upon James again on a real dating website. I should stalk his name and find out if we're compatible 15 years later. ;)