Hot People Don't Believe the Hype (An Open Letter to E-Harmony)

This isn't my first brush with online dating. Unfortunately, it probably won't be my last either. But I've got a beef that I've just gotta get off my chest.

Dear E-Harmony,

I object to your claims about compatibility. You cannot match people up based on their personalities. At the risk of sounding ghetto, you don't know me. And I doubt you really care to anyway, as long as you can keep automatically charging $30/month on my VISA***. What you CAN do is match people up based on their own impressions of their personalities. And let's be honest, here. I'm pretty sure most people out there, especially the single ones ('cause Lord knows, we're all still single for a reason!), don't have enough grip on reality to TRULY know themselves. The result of this is that the people we ACTUALLY are is almost never the same as the people we THINK we are. Some people THINK they have a sarcastic sense of humour, but a lot of the time, people just don't really know what sarcasm is (except that they're pretty sure it's something that people find funny...and attractive in others...).

Secondly, your *claim* "When attraction is ignited by TRUE compatibility...", first of all, is not even a sentence. (Weren't you founded by a DOCTOR? Who had to go to SCHOOL?? Where you learn how to WRITE SHIT?!?!?!?). But it also requires that the average tv-watching consumer not be duped into thinking you can also guarantee that attraction. I wasn't duped by your slogan with the poor sentence structure, but I WAS duped by the pictures. And I say duped because it doesn't take a genius to know that everyone posts the MOST flattering pictures of themselves and never the ones where they've lost the game of angles. For some reason, the fact that I play the game had no bearing on my expectation of how others will play.

The only thing you CAN claim is that you're pretty ok at figuring out if people will be decent friends. And when people are desperately lonely because they live in brand new towns and don't know anyone except their co-workers and the girl at the express checkout at the grocery store, and because they quit debating because they're old ladies and are missing the National Championships for the first time in eight years and don't know what's happening there because THEIR FRIENDS DON'T TEXT THEM WHEN THEY SAY THEY WILL (ok, I forgive you guys. I know how crazy busy it gets there...I'm just sad and lonely here), making a decent friend should be good enough. But when you also show clips of impossibly beautiful people who are deliriously happy with each other and give people the impression that there was just this spark of love immediately, it makes us believe we SHOULD want more than a decent friend and it makes us sorely disappointed when that's all you can deliver.

So, I wonder, E-Harmony, what do you have to say to me in response? And more to the point, what do you have to say to the poor fellow sitting at home right now who thinks it's just great that he's met a girl that FINALLY he can have a conversation with? And what about the fact that I feel like a complete douche right now because YOU DIDN'T DO THE JOB YOU CLAIMED TO BE ABLE TO DO??? Well, I can find decent friends on my own, thanks. And I guess I can decide who I'm compatible with too. This is what I have to say to you, E-Harmony. Oh, and keep the $30.

Love,

Miss T

***In other news, apparently all those years of having a VISA limit that was exceeded whenever I bought more than a stick of gum has paid off. When I went to the bank to alert them that I was no longer a student, they told me my credit rating was like, A plus plus plus star and now I have more credit than I know what to do with. Hilarious.

Hot People Aren't So Sad and Lonely

Alright, so the title may have been a wee bit dramatic, but I've been in this new town for about two weeks, and it's been a week since I last saw someone I actually know (and I've run out of the lasagna my Mommy made when she was here. See? Sad!). This is no way to mark the approximate one-year anniversary of Hot in 6 Months.

All resolutions have been put on hold until I get my feet wet at work and, more crucially, get my first paycheque - though that's already earmarked for professional fee renewals and car payments (crippling ones!). In the interim, I've been getting practice with the manual transmission on my new automobile (Why did I think THAT was a good idea?) by going to Wal-Mart to buy odds and ends like paper towel and windshield scrapers, watching movies (note to self [and others]: Mamie Van Doren, though busty and beautiful, does not make good films. Period.), going to bed before 10 p.m. like a 73-year-old, and eating far more candy than is reasonable for a normal person, let alone a dietitian who counsels diabetes sufferers exclusively. Basically, I'm a lazy, sleepy person who eats garbage - but at least I've got a brand new
car (note that under my coat and boots, I'm wearing pajamas and haven't brushed my hair)!

No guitar-playing, no French-speaking (yet!), and only slightly better taste in music. And of course, plan ab-tastic has been put on hold once again. It's hard to get rock-hard abs if your most vigorous exercise consists of walking from the bedroom at one end of your apartment to the bathroom at the other.

And, if that weren't enough, my relative laziness has manifested itself in significantly more internet-surfing. And that's when I came upon this! Hottest Blogging Babes 2010!?!? And I'm not one of them?!!?!?! This is, truly, a failure.

Obviously, something must be done about this. Luckily, despite living in a pretty teensy town, it's relatively well-appointed in the amenities department. Apparently, there's a gym here with personal trainers. It is my plan to meet with one of these trainers as soon as financially possible. It is my further plan to relate to this trainer my quest for hotness and plan ab-tastic. I will do this by telling him or her that my fitness goal is to "look good naked." Hopefully the not-so-thinly veiled reference to one of my favourite movies will not go unnoticed.

The knowing-more-people problem is not so simple to rectify. Like I said before, I don't know what the cool kids do around here for fun and I don't know how to find out. I'm seriously considering going to church tomorrow just so I can get to know some people who HAVE to be nice to me. Has it really come to this?