J date. part Deux

After seriously believing I had exhausted the list of "Js" in my social network last month, I was ready to move on to the next letter. As "K" had already been tried the day Zinedine Zidane headbutted that cocky Italian soccer player, I figured I could directly tackle 'L." maybe I was finally about to meet Love?
In the meantime, I would stop pretending being a New Yorker and really try online dating, chatting the night away. (i am only revealing this now because the one month trial is over and my profile taken down...eheheh)

So, after filling out some kind of profile, I logged into a virtual world of happiness. First there was James -I guess I had not exhausted the J's after all- to whom I explained that SanFran was the first US city I had been to right after high school. I had gone there for 5 weeks to learn English, but everyone in my class being a foreigner as well I had came back speaking Italian. He replied within the regulatory 2.3 days by saying he was a recent Vet. school grad, and how he would totally try reading novels if the right person asked him to.

I felt like I was back in the whole set of implied house rules one had to decipher, ingest and integrate, just like in the (sur)real New York life. But being oblivious to the fact that I should probably wait for another email 1 1/2, plus 2-3 business days between replies and another 5 hours just to be safe, I offered him to skip it all and meet up in a bar after he was done handing out prescriptions to horses with pounding headaches. From our online delayed -or maybe just jet-lagged- conversations it seemed at the time that we could get along rather easily (and if I were wrong, one one us can always fake a sudden doctor's appointment in the middle of diner...) He had said he liked to watch Star Trek re-runs and I was sure I could find something to do in this city to make him feel we actually did meet on the set of a Sci-Fi novella. So it was set, Thursday night, 8.30pm.
And strangely enough that was all that ever happened as far as my last J went. His horses got the flu, and I got an autograph from Peter Graves instead.


2 pints of therapeutic Hagendaaz and 3 bags of Oreos later, I came back online, determined to do a little bit of homework before voluntarily exposing myself to yet another disaster: I would read what the other women wrote about themselves and take lessons from what the sum of Miss Perfect had to say. According to these profiles, the wonder girl was voluptuously pretty -of course-, loved to have fun, deeply loved her family and friends, would go out to diner but also stay home sometimes, played hard worked hard, and, yes, loved to laugh. Basically, if I were to fit in I had to revised my profile a bit, as none of the above keywords appeared in the section I had filled under "My ideal relationship." Instead, mine read:
"My long term goal is to meet people who will not denounce me, adventurous nerds, people who like absurd stories and pillow fights. I do not wish to meet anyone related to celery or fennel."
Browsing through, I carefully read Amato profile (backtrack in the alphabet...) and decided to do my best to adapt to the norm while personalizing the message as much as possible:

"I thought I would drop you a note, because I think you're the perfect man. I mean, yeah. You're blond and you read comics. I mean. What's not to like? I also think that men who bowl for a living are hot. Or at least popular, but isn't it the same?
Since you might ask, I am not blond, but as I mentioned in my profile I am French, so it helps. I lived in D.C for a year and offered a co-worker to fly to Vegas to marry me, just because we had nothing else to do that morning. Unfortunately, he turned around before entering the subway. I want to meet someone that will actually make it to the airport with me. I have no manners, no plan on getting any, but I don't have a goatee so it's not all bad I guess. I'd love to hear more about you, your dreams in life, and how they got shattered so you ended up on Jdate.
I mean.
yeah.
best regards.
M."


Looking back at this email now, I guess I can sort of understand why he never replied, and that switching to DSL would not fix the problem. I signed off -or so I thought- and started another journal entry at 3am.