You can find anything on the Internet

A few weeks ago, a friend who's a somewhat recent transplant to Boston and I were chatting about dating in Beantown.

"A lot of people have offered to set me up with different guys," she said. "I'm not sure I even need to use the Internet. What do you think?"

I told her that personally I would have a very empty date book if it weren't for the Internet. But when I thought about it more, I realized that even if I did have friends who wanted to set me up right and left, I'd still want to meet guys from the Internet.

The last guy I dated before Moustache, in my pre-Internet days, was a banker named White Pants who funded open-top mines. He made a good living in an incredibly boring and even (in my opinion) immoral way. Without revealing too many details, here are some of the guys I've met from the Internet:

• An artist who made futuristic machines and participated in lots of international exhibits
  
• A man who was famous for winning several hundred thousand dollars on a TV gameshow
• A comedian who worked for one of the most well-known comedy troupes in the country
• A writer who quoted the New York Times review of his book on his OkCupid profile (it was negative)
• A lawyer who specializes in welfare cases
  
• A painter who teaches underprivileged kids at a local university and hunts for mushrooms in his spare time
  
• A musician who was named one of the country's most promising young songwriters
• A scientist who studies the importance of play
• A man who trained people all over the world in mediation

Plus a whole slew of other guys with only slightly less interesting jobs. Moreover, all of these people (with just one exception) were really nice guys. I met all of them on OkCupid, which you don't even have to pay for. And when I briefly tried a paid site -- Match -- the guys I met were far less interesting.

Why would I want to be set up with my friends' boring accountant friends and lawyer cousins when there's the Internet? Seriously, it's a no-brainer.

The E word

I woke up on Friday morning to a chat from my recently traumatized friend Checkered Girl, who wanted a Dreamy update. When I told her that my plans for that evening included bringing up the topic of exclusivity, she balked and advised me to hold off. She pointed out that modern American men have a tendency to flip out when they hear the E word, and that we have only been dating for a month. She thought it would be more appropriate to have the exclusivity talk closer to the 2 or 3 month mark.

All good points which I considered seriously, then decided to ignore. First of all, I don't think Dreamy is a guy who would flip out at the mention of the E word; and if he is, maybe he's not the kind of person I want to date. Second of all, I had canceled a date with an eligible bachelor because of Dreamy, and I wanted to make sure we were on the same page. A few years ago, after I had been dating my ex White Pants for several (3 I think) months, it occurred to me that I should check to make sure we were exclusive. I was shocked and amazed by his response: "I'm not seeing anyone, but I'm not comfortable agreeing to be exclusive yet." FINE. I found a replacement boyfriend and sent him on his way. How long does it take to know that you are interested in seriously pursuing something with a person?? I think one month is more than enough. In fact, I had a strong hunch after date #1 that I was seriously interested in Dreamy, and pretty darn sure after date #2.

So I brought it up with Dreamy, and we had a very romantic conversation (I thought) in which we agreed to not see other people. I told him about canceling my date; we talked about making more time for each other. He said he'd like to talk more during the week when we're too busy to see each other.

Making more time for each other, though, turns out to be more easily said than done. Dreamy had plans this week on Tuesday and Thursday; I have pottery on Wednesday. He suggested he come by after his plans on Tuesday or Thursday, but Dreamy finishes work around 7, and I am often in bed by 9:30. It seemed unlikely he'd be able to make it over before then. I considered offering to visit him after my pottery class, but I carpool with my friend Heathen, and a visit would mean going solo; besides, I am tired and muddy after I get out of pottery. As we worked out all these kinks and finally settled on hanging out on Friday, I began to get annoyed again, especially since next week is virtually booked up for me already. I knew it wasn't his fault, since I am just as busy as he is, but I was annoyed nonetheless and wishing that he could just be free whenever I am.

Then Dreamy sent me a couple of short emails that made everything better. "I hate that we can't see each other until Friday," he said, and my annoyance dissipated, just knowing that he wishes he could see me before then. Next: "Let's plan a Fall Adventure for Saturday." Finally, the clincher: "Do you need help moving?"

It really doesn't get much more romantic than that.

Finding a modality that works for me

During my drive up to Maine on Friday for the holiday weekend, I found myself pondering the events of the last couple of weeks and months, and wondering if perhaps I need to change my approach. Here is a sampling of my thoughts:

• I spent four days crying almost nonstop after I lost my bird, to the point where my contacts became so salt-encrusted that I couldn't see. Even as I was bawling over my little green featherball, I could feel that I was really upset over so much more.
  
• I got my knickers all twisted over a chubby guy with copious backhair who I made out with a few times in March. Why did I care so much?
• Dating has brought me frustration and bitterness, but no husbands.
  
• I spent Friday morning drinking bloody marys, watching the Netherlands/Brazil soccer game and flirting with the cute bartender with a tattoo of JFK on his wrist, who commiserated with me on my loss of Haricot by telling me how sad he was when his pet python escaped.
  
• I dismissed the cute, nice French Canadian who is the only good communicator of all the men I've dated since my breakup because he told me he's not looking for a wife at this time.

A piece of advice that my neighbor, the Cat Lady, gave me several months ago popped into my mind. "Maybe," she said (she prefaces all her advice this way because, as a single lesbian in her fifties, she doesn't feel totally qualified to give me advice), "you should just relax and have fun. You're young and attractive. Just see guys casually, and don't look at it as auditioning to find your next boyfriend."

When my sister, Ms. Swamp, began online dating a couple of years ago, her goal was to find a husband, and she did. Well, they're not quite married yet, but to all intents and purposes she did. As I sifted through my feelings, I wondered if perhaps what I need right now is not a husband, but a Mr. White Pants (or several Mr. White Pants). Pants was the guy I dated for four months after I broke up with my ex-ex-boyfriend, l'Artista. He took me to the opera and drove me around Manhattan in his convertible and bought me nice dinners and generally entertained me and distracted me, and when I was ready to be emotionally connected to someone again, I moved on.

So I'm going to try the Cat Lady's approach. I'm just going to relax and enjoy the summer and give myself time to get over my traumas of the past year. I sent Le Canadien a message and asked if he wants to get a beer, and within three hours we had a date set up, because that's the kind of communicator he is. And I'll probably swing by and visit my bartender this afternoon to watch the game and maybe hear more about his python.

Kissing Frogs

In her infinite maternal wisdom, my mom has counseled me and my sister that “In order to find a prince, you have to kiss a lot of frogs.” Even though this is contradicted by my mom's own experience – she got married at the ripe old age of 22-going-on-23, and I seriously doubt that she had the time to kiss many frogs before then – I am beginning to see her point. I met and began dating La Moustache six months (to the day, weirdly) after my breakup with l'Artista. When we met, I had been dating a man named Mr. White Pants for four months. Even though I knew that there were plenty of other men out there besides Mr. White Pants and La Moustache, it was hard not to feel like I had two choices before me, and one was very clearly superior to the other.

Mr. White Pants was a Southern gentleman, hailing from a tobacco city in North Carolina, the youngest of six or seven siblings. He was twelve years my senior, and I met him through his college roommate, who had been trying fruitlessly for some time to court me. In retrospect, it wasn't very nice of him to flirt with his friend's crush, but at the time I can't say I minded.

Mr. Pants worked for a bank and made a lot of money. He had gone to graduate school at Columbia, spoke fluent Russian, and lived for several years in Uzbekistan. He was on the board of a small theater company and invited me to the opera. Sometimes I thought that if he were a character on Sex and the City the ladies would think he was a really good catch. In the end, though, I'm not one of the Sex and the City ladies, and after a while I started to realize that despite his intelligence he was lacking in one very important area -- personality. Every time he talked to me about his work I was either bored stiff or horrified, like when he told me about financing open-top mines. He enjoyed tango dancing, but it seemed more like a hobby he had picked up to make himself seem interesting than a genuine passion.

And then there was the matter of the pants. He always dressed up for our dates, and frequently wore his favorite white pants. When I got to know him better, I found out that every time he wore the white pants he had to wear tighty whities to match them, because otherwise people could see his undergarments through the pants. I'm not saying I don't sometimes have to think about wearing underwear that you can't see through my clothes, but a man who matches his underpants and trousers was a turnoff, to say the least. In addition, one day my Wise Woman mentioned to me that when she was walking down the streets of Manhattan one day she passed a man who she wondered might be Mr. White Pants. When she described him to me, he sounded utterly ridiculous.

Just as I was starting to feel ready to move on, along came La Moustache. He was handsome, had an interesting job, he told me great stories about his recent trip to the West Bank to cover the war between Israel and Lebanon, he was funny, we were reading the same book when we met (Heat by Bill Buford, a great book), he loved the New Yorker like me, and I instantly felt more comfortable with him than I ever had with Mr. White Pants. But I wonder if, had I been dating other men, I would have thought more critically about him and kept my options open longer, rather than allowing myself to be convinced to jump headlong into a relationship as I did. Perhaps through the veneer of charm I would have discovered his underlying froggy qualities; or perhaps not, since (to give myself some credit) he was very good at hiding them.

In the interest of learning from my past mistakes, I have been working on meeting frogs. Here are some of my stats so far:

Frogs I've gone on dates with: 4
Frogs I've gone on second dates with: 2
Frogs kissed: 2 ½ (one was an awkward edge-of-the-mouth kiss that I was attempting to dodge)
Frogs kissed because my sister forced me to: 1
Second dates I've gone on because I had a bit too much to drink on the first date and got beer goggles: 1 (mental note: one drink maximum per date)
Very nice frogs I've gone out with: 3
Frogs who really liked me: 2
Frogs I found attractive: 0

Another piece of advice I received recently from my mother after I complained about the lack of attractiveness of my dates: “In the end, it's not really that important.” Again, this is contradicted by her own experience – my dad is very handsome, and even after nearly forty years of marriage Mom will occasionally pause when she sees him across the room and say, “He's really quite good-looking, don't you think?” This is one piece of advice I am ignoring: I want a hot boyfriend, and I think I deserve one.

Clearly, I have a ways to go. My sister went on dates with 26 men before she met her prince, the Sensitive Bostonian. And this time, I am determined not to be tricked by any frogs disguised as princes.