Scott’s Intro To Online Dating in Miami

A friend of mine calls me a serial online dater.  That’s not true; I simply have such bad dates that I end up running back to the garden of online love, certain that someone normal is out there.  And when I say bad dates, what I mean is horrible dates.  And I’ve had enough bad dates that I’ve honestly considered moving to India to find enlightenment, maybe enter a monastery, and just live out my life alone eating grains and working on my calligraphy.  Maybe be a ninja.  That might be better.  Chicks dig ninjas.

How bad could it be, Scott?  Surely, you exaggerate.  If only I did.  I’ve had dates with women who have drooled.  And not in a good way.  Picture a foot of spittle dangling from the lower lip, suspended in mid-air like some Matrix moment where you can circle around it frozen in time, only for the slithery slobber to disappear somewhere into her lap.  I’ve had first dates where women have brought their two children under the age of five, the kids having picked out our destination at the last minute (Chucky Cheese, here we come!).  I even had a date with a woman that was nothing more than her bringing her laundry over and subjecting my washing machine/dryer to her 10-12 loads of towels and sweatpants and blouses and dainties because “I really don’t want to go to the laundromat down the street.  This saves me quarters.” 

The Good, the Bad, and the REALLY Bad

There have been the occasional good dates and sometimes-worthwhile relationships.  When I lived in South Carolina, I met a woman online from the Orlando area and we actually scheduled a three-day first/blind date in DC.  Sight unseen, I bought her ticket and picked her up at Dulles airport for what would be three days of great fun and us, of course, knowing that we would likely never see each other again.  But then, any positive is immediately canceled out by a negative. Like a date with a woman who, I would painfully realize upon waking from a dead sleep in the middle of the night, had severe digestive problems and not enough windows in her tiny one-bedroom apartment.  Tainted love indeed.

But I hung up my online dating gloves about a year and a half ago, resolved to the fact that I would die alone only to be discovered a day later by my neighbors, my solitary cat only concerned with figuring out how to open the can of Whiskas.  I was done with online dating.  For.  Ev.  Er.  And then I moved to Miami.

Dating in Miami or Why You Shouldn’t Dine Alone

When I moved here nearly three months ago, I immediately fell in love with Miami.  It’s uniquely beautiful and just sleazy and superficial enough for my tastes.  And it has just this aura about it like no other metropolis not to mention that great restaurants seem to abound.  And I love a great dining experience and don’t mind a two-hour dinner by myself somewhere.  Having been alone for so long, and having always been somewhat of an introvert, I’ve never minded doing things by myself.  I’ll go to the movies by myself.  I’ll go out by myself just to be in the middle of things.  But being new to this city that is so full of life, I thought, “It would be so great to explore the city with someone and it actually mean something.”  I considered online dating but then I had a flashback and started going into convulsions.  Forget it, I’m sure to just meet someone.  Yeah.

Shortly after I got settled in South Beach, I was dining alone one night outside of a restaurant, and a transient passerby named Tony from Venezuela invited himself to sit with me.  And I really do like people and I’m friendly by nature so this was just fine with me.  But after I bought him a beer (since he was without money) and he ate the last of my shrimp AND he made the not-so-subtle suggestion that he and I should hook up despite me telling him I wasn’t gay, I was pretty certain that online dating might not be a bad thing.  Gay dates with homeless men in South Beach wasn’t exactly how I pictured my new life in Miami.

Back to the tangled web of dating I returned.  And I’ve reached the conclusion that Match.com is my Hotel California.  I always check out, but I never seem to leave.  It’s a love-hate thing with us.  They love my money, and I hate dating.  Actually, that’s not true.  I love dating.  If I didn’t date, I wouldn’t have had these wonderfully weird experiences.  And it’s always nice cocktail conversation, relaying the story of the mercy date you went on because a girl cried (practically screamed) in your ear “WHY DON’T YOU LIKE ME,” after one date (you could HEAR the shoulders heaving back and forth through the cell phone).  Yig!

How NOT to Write a Profile

So I sign back up for Match.com.  I plead with the female populace to save me from dinners alone with the homeless.  I make a few comments about my interests, talk about my life and what I’m looking for in a woman.  (Hear that, Tony?  A woman.)  But let’s talk about profiles for a minute.  Women’s profiles aren’t so bad.  Some are a little weird, but it’s ok.  But guys profiles?  Listen up, guys:  you need to step it up a notch.  Some of you might as well just take a photo of your ransom note made from newspaper and magazine clippings and post that.  And some of you sound so insanely desperate that you would have better odds of finding your match by simply taking a photo of your hairy palms with a sticky note attached that has the words “Help Me” Sharpied across it.

Seriously, guys, if you don’t have a spell checker, just get one.  And try and avoid mentioning your mother.  And your ex-girlfriend/wife.  And for the love of all things holy, you don’t have to specify that they be shaved.  That’s something you bring up over dinner on your first date.

Miami’s Sea of Love

Anyway, back to dating in Miami.  It’s not so weird here online.  I thought it might be strange, but the only noticeable difference is that there are more people here who are bilingual.  Other than that, things are about the same, only in larger quantities than smaller towns.  And most of my neighbors have used or are using online dating sites.  Everyone has horror stories, they carry battle wounds.  But then, at least one couple in my small building met online and they seem happy.  But they’re both crazy.  No offense, Ralph and Brianna.

I’ve had a few conversations with women here and there.  And having kids, honestly, I always find it easier to relate to a woman with children.  It sounds kind of snobbish, but there’s a level of maturity there that just doesn’t exist with a woman who doesn’t have kids.  Plus, you’ve got an instant ice breaker.  But that’s just me.  And so my first online date in Miami was actually with a single mom; she was the drooler.  Welcome to Miami.

Meeting Just a Girl

But since then, I’ve met another girl.  And I’m dubbing her “Justagirl.”  It seems the most appropriate name since she claimed to me once that she’s “just a girl” when I mentioned that I was failing to see a flaw with her.  And honestly, I still can’t.  But she might be a post-op transsexual.  We haven’t talked about that yet. So that could be an issue for me.  No offense to post-op transsexuals, just not my bag.

So it’s gone well with her.  In the past, the way things have usually worked for me is that I would connect with someone on match and we might exchange a couple of emails.  If things seemed right, then it would move to instant messaging.  With emails, and with profiles, a person can remain guarded, but instant messaging happens right then so the other person comes shining through in their choice of words pretty quickly.  I’m not crazy about talking on the phone with the exception of scheduling the initial date because awkward silences on the phone are, well, awkward.  I want all my awkwardness on the date.  It’s better like that.

But with Justagirl, it’s been good.  Different.  We emailed and texted each other for a good eight days before we made solid plans for a date.  Then we spent a couple of nights talking for hours upon hours on the phone.  And then…. Then the date came.
I guess I should confess here, too, that there is some natural weirdness about me.  There’s always something just out of place in my world.  So when we scheduled our date, we decided to go to the movies first.  And movies are horrible first dates because you don’t get to talk to the person.  But we thought it might be best to relieve any nervousness that there was between us.  We both had some anxiety.

The Unfortunate Business of Being Me

So here’s the thing.  The night before our date, I get an ear infection.  Apparently, I’m 6 years old and drink Juicy Juice.  I think there are only two documented cases of men my age getting ear infections, both happening in the mid 1800s.  So I go to the doctor the morning of the date to get medicine, him assuring me that somehow, magically, my ear will be cleared up by that evening.
My ear didn’t clear up.  So I meet Justagirl at the movies.  She knows about the ear situation.  She has to stay on my right side so I can hear her.  We go to the movie and it sounds very muffled.  And it’s slow moving.  And then some kids come and sit behind us that seem really loud, but I don’t know.  I ask Justagirl if they’re being too loud; she says they aren’t.  A few minutes later, I get the feeling that Justagirl isn’t enjoying this scenario anymore than I am.  So we agree to leave.

And of course it’s going to be the case that everywhere we go that night (at Dolphin Mall – yes, a date with me gets you a lovely night at the mall!) is blaringly loud.  A band is playing out in the open area.  I’m spending my night straining to hear Justagirl with my one good ear.  We sat at one of the McRestaurants there.  And then we would walk around.  It was just a tad awkward, but then she would lean in and, mmmm.  She even smelled beautiful.  Actually, that might be a good tip for dating.  Fake an ear ache so you have to lean in all the time.

Anyway, we eventually made our way up to Dave and Busters.  And then it was game on.  I knew that Justagirl liked playing games with her kids.  So we went in and we had an absolute blast.  After schooling her in the ways of Galaga, she redeemed herself by stomping me in a shoot-em-up game.  And then Dave & Busters closed and the night was coming to an end.

Scott Fails…

We had a great time, she drove me around the parking lot to my car.  And then…. Fail.  I was pretty taken with Justagirl.  Pretty well taken.  But for some reason, I couldn’t deliver a kiss good night.  I wanted to.  Ohhhh, how I wanted to.  We had had fun and it didn’t seem that it would be unusual.  But there were all these rules about what she could and couldn’t do on a date (a smart concerned sister laid out some ground rules).  And I didn’t want to cross any boundaries.  And so I told her goodnight, got in my car and drove home.

It wasn’t just good, it was great.  I liked Justagirl.  In fact, I liked her so much, and she liked me enough, that we…  well, we’re still talking to each other.  We still have long conversations on the phone.  She still signs her emails, “Smooches” to me, even though I have yet to actually smooch her.  She still sends me cute text messages and I send them back.  And she makes me smile.  And I might make her smile.  I think I do.

...or Does He?

So we actually had a second date.  After the first date, we realized we should do something fun together.  Something really fun.  And so we planned what would be dubbed “the whirlwind date.”  And all of my friends said I was nuts.  But my friends, as we know, suck.  And plus, as far as I can tell, Justagirl doesn’t drool.  And that makes me happy.

Stay tuned tomorrow to learn what happened on “the whirlwind date” with Justagirl.

Related Links: • An Introduction to Getting Laid in Miami • How To Meet Girls and Women • Books at Amazon.com on Online Dating • How NOT to write profiles Related Categories: Technology, Scott is a photographer in South Beach who shoots models, street/street fashion photography, and life in South Beach. All of this can be seen at ipanemic.com See more articles by Scott. See more articles by Scott Was This Post Helpful? Please Share It With Others! Tweet

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