You Talkin' to Me?

I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned this before, but I'm going to preface the following by saying that the profiles that I write for these websites are amazing works of comedic art. So when a guy wrote me on OkCupid today who despite an obvious effort, was not particularly clever, I was, as always, indignant. His profile was a similar story. When lame comedy arrives in my inbox, I wish to say to these people, "you have the nerve to address me with this?" Well of course this is only true if the person isn't particularly hot. If someone is hot, they can be a lot more dumb.

Confused? Reference this powerful visual aid designed to deepen one's understanding of how my brain works. The blue line represents ntohing. The red line is on an exponential curve and is The Hotness Index to Dumbness Tolerated Quotient:

All in jest, all in jest. Dumbness is not hot! Spread the word kids.

Anyway I checked this lame guy's profile, to see whether I could forgive him his faults. This is when things got really bad. In one photo, he blotted out all the faces of his friends. Not sure if this was to respect their collective privacy or more a product of an instinctual knowledge that in order to mate, he will need to hide his friends, who despite their blurred out faces I could still tell were more attractive than him.

Saturday night is a fine time to blog about meeting losers from the Internet

On this Saturday night I am not quickly blogging these words to you while the hottie I am out with is in the bathroom, but rather, I am happily in my childhood home in suburban Maryland, away from the manifestations of my hubris.

	"There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. These are things we do not know we don’t know."
—United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld

I know that the above quote from the former Secretary of Defense sounds convoluted (known known) so I, as current Secretary of Defense Mechanisms, will shed some light on what he meant, using the battlefield of my love as an illustrative tool.

• A known known is that dating strangers from the Internet provided me with nearly hassle free romantic anonymity for six simple months.
• A known unknown is the extent and nature of the complications that shall result from my failure to stick to the original blueprint.
• An unknown unknown is ???
  

Show me the someone who can wrap their head around that last one and I will date that wise knows-it's-not-a-know-it-all. Also, if that someone can use a hammer and is taller than me and/or owns a ladder, they will be promoted to Secretary of Interior Design.

Up where they walk, up where they run, up where they give you their real name

Given that the population of Brooklyn alone exceeds that of DC by five-fold, it's surprising that the apparent user base of OkCupid in BK has not delivered much in the way of motivation for me to keep on keepin' on. Traveling an hour on a subway for a date that doesn't contain a modicum of joy is a failure at life itself. Sigh. It is true. All the best people to go on 1-3 dates with, trade briefly halfhearted text communications for pipe dream future plans, then forget about, are not online, but out there. Like Ariel, the Little Mermaid, I've been to the surface and have returned with worldly knowledge and dissatisfaction in my heart and mind.

As for the title and primary subject of this blog, the word "Online" has fallen into a certain amount of obsolescence in my personal life, as my offline dating club bears more fruit. I yield to you as I would to a paternal authority, shaking in my boots at your possible disapproval. Can this blog be emancipated from a life in the sea of online creepers and dorks?

Grill my dinner at the same time you grill me on where I went to college

The long weekend that gives a nod to the nation's birth is again a satisfyingly consumptive time. Eight hours of manila folders and dreaming of barbecues at my standard rate of pay and three hours spent in the company of a teetotaler brought to you by OkCupid did not deter from a weekend packed with typical Fourth thrills. Vistas, slutty striped dresses rendered thematic, and fireworks literal and metaphorical. To the Americans who took a pause from the hullabaloo to check this site, I want to thank you for making the ODC a component of your celebratory measures and for your pledge of allegiance to what happens here.