Another First Date.

Call me a glutton for punishment. Unlike Objection, who (though she hasn't told you, but I'll spill the beans) has plans for a sixth date this weekend, I have been less "lucky" on the dating front. Less lucky, overly picky, whatever.

But I have been corresponding for the past two weeks with a nice young gentleman. Our correspondence actually started over a wink, not a contrived, well-thought out, edited by friends email, such as all the others had. I believe, in fact, that I may have sent the first wink, something I generally do not do.

Here are other things I do not generally do that I have found myself doing with this individual:

1. Replying when I feel like it and not waiting the "requisite" amount of time.
2. Not overthinking every word and phrase.
3. Not encouraging or instigating flirty banter, filled with veiled references to things in his profile.
4. Not caring that his profile is short and to the point and not detailed at all--to the point where I don't really know all that much about him or his likes/dislikes from reading it.
5. Not caring that, in the five or so sentences he does manage to put out there, there are three grammatical mistakes.
6. Adopting a laissez-faire attitude and not stressing out about the impending coffee date.

Maybe all of the restrictions I had put on myself (intentionally or not) were keeping me from truly experiencing this online dating thing as it should be experienced. Maybe my high maintenance approach to finding an online "match" was a hindrance. I had been lured in by the looks of one individual (who reminded me of someone I should not have been remembering) and was entranced by this affable man who responded to my sassy emails with the appropriate amount of banter. Despite my inner voices saying this was a very base "relationship" we had going, I kept up the correspondence, despite many red flags (including but not limited to: (a) "I might be moving in a couple months, so I"m not looking for anything serious" (b) "Sorry for the delay in responding, I have been having ex issues" (c) "You're awesome and we obviously have a rapport, but let's hold off meeting" (d) not to mention the accusatory "why do you keep checking out my profile").

I continued to start off my online relationships with similar types of emails. While the rapport online was amazing, it did not transfer well to the real world. In real life, it is less easy to have the witty comebacks and references when you don't have time to think of them and/or the Internet at your fingertips. You have to perform. And while I am obviously capable of this type of performance (surprising, even to me), these men who were seemingly savvy over my computer screen were not so much IRL.

What this diatribe comes down to is this: I'm a bit nervous about this upcoming date, as the "relationship" (for lack of a better word) has not started in the traditional Reluctant Dater fashion (it is, at this point, that I will admit that those in my recent dating history were also privy to my email genius and, truthfully, were lured in as much by my written word as my outer beauty). But, as a good friend of mine pointed out, "Well, the other way hasn't exactly worked out. Let's just consider this another angle and see how it goes."