New York Post Dating: The Extra-Late, Curled-Up-In-The-Bathroom Edition

I had something good to write for this week, yet I was felled by a nasty case of food poisoning on Monday and could not find enough resiliance left in my stomach to re-read this week's column (heh) to complete a draft. Not until now, anyway:

Kat from last week went with Sean, the bulky-jawed comedian who reminded me of Jay Leno. Although Sean was perhaps hoping to find some actual romance in the deal, it was not in the cards:

Pretty early in the conversation Kat emphasized that a) she felt kind of weird about going on a blind date, and b) that she was mainly in this whole affair for the free meal.

Ugh. I addressed this problem not too long ago, saying that the "free meal sweepstakes" gets some people thinking that they won a food prize rather than a match setup, and that they're under no obligation whatsoever to even try to like the other person (unless it's some shallowly conceived love-at-first-lusty-glance sort of thing). What these selfish daters fail to realize is that it's only polite to at least put in a 1/2 hour's effort to try to find a connection, or something remotely likeable about the other person.

Wait, how old is Kat again? 23, of course. Ah, those crazy young females. The only times some of the young, snotty types act like they're not bored with men in New York is if they're being treated to a free meal or getting chased by a mugger. To Kat's credit, her politeness extended this far:

As we parted, she said, "Thanks for not being creepy."

Yeah, sure, that setup worked.

Next up, we have Ryan, a 26-year-old digital imaging specialist. He's been around before as a choice of three men - now being recycled as a chooser of women. His profile is alright, as he seems kind of mild and likeable. Only problem is, his face is RED. Can't you guys at the Post do a little digital-imaging-specialist work yourselves and not make it look like he went crazy with cocktails before he took this picture? He looks like he's totally sauced. Eh, nothing ever goes right around here.

And now we have his choices. Let's try to be kind to these women, because life hasn't been kind with me lately (I figured God had it in for me after I've slandered dozens of people in this blog for the past 8-9 months):

Elyse is cute. She likes to be lazy and relax, but she also likes the gym? (Either it's a poor arrangement of words, or she just feels like she wants to go to the gym more often.) Then she labels herself as vivacious and energetic, as "the entertainer". Quite contradictory. Moving forward, she's probably a vegan (most likely explanation for not usually eating butter, as she was forced to do on her worst date) and she'd like to go out more often - which could mean (not necessarily, though) she's hoping someone will come along to pay for entertainment and relieve her of her tight-budgeted Friday nights at home. At first pass, this profile looks harmless, but on closer inspection there are a couple of warning signs. I think the profile needs better shaping, but just in case, I'm being cautious with this one.

Jenny is generally an adventurous person, despite her occasional preference to watch some TV. (Hey, that's perfectly normal and O.K.!) Sometimes, she likes to get crazy and "let lose", which should be spelled with the word "loose" but we'll let it slip. (The spell check key in Microsoft Word, if anyone wants to know, is F7.) I was thrown off by this a little bit:

What's sexy? The simplest things. I like a guy who can go with the flow and doesn't freak out at the littlest things. I like guys with glasses sometimes. A guy who knows how to dance well is important - and I love blonds. And guys that are smart, but not too smart.

She starts off the answer with "the simplest things", but then starts naming specific preferences! Oi! Can't make up our minds, can we? Still, she seems pretty nice, so we'll give her a fair shot in the end - too bad Ryan isn't a blond, though. *sigh*

Finally, we have Leslie. She's a teacher; if you couldn't tell, I always have a soft spot in my heart for teachers (I find the profession lends attractive qualities to the women who pursue it). And she's very cute, too - kind of like a dark-blonde Zooey Deschanel. So adorable! I want to cut and paste most of her profile here because it works so well - she's very down-to-earth and sweet - but I'd leave out one part:

What do you look for in a man? Someone who's funny and playful, liberal and has a good reading voice.

NOOOOOO! Leave the damn politics OUT OF THE PROFILES! That's a mood killer right there for anyone who's not a raving liberal lunatic. And no, I don't care that New York is full of raving liberal lunatics, and that most of them are unapologetic. It's a mistake nonetheless!**

Well, despite some glaring profile mistakes and perhaps a red flag or two, it's not a bad field to choose from this week. I have to go with Leslie, because she doesn't show any personality-related red flags (just a dating profile mishap) and she never specifically rules out guys who have Ryan's dark brown hair color. Easy choice, nothing to drag on about. Still, the voting is going very heavily in favor of Elyse, which is inexplicable considering that the other two are somewhat solid choices and that there's nothing fantastic in Elyse's profile that makes her stand out among other reasonably good choices. I simply don't get it. Maybe we'll figure it out next week.

**The requisite clarification: I'm not being critical of liberals here, even as I'm sort of wisecracking about the strength of the liberal vote in NYC. There's really nothing wrong with any political preference, but there is something wrong with intolerance. When you start putting political signals in your dating profile, it's a clear indicator that you are unwilling to associate with those who don't agree with you politically. That's rather assinine and should be avoided. That said, no specific party affiliation is correct or incorrect; all preferences should be tolerated, and none picked out. Furthermore, feel free to have a good-natured discussion about politics once you're actually on the date.