Dear Men of Match...

It's been interesting and informative and has provided me with a lot of blog material, but I am cancelling my subscription now.* Don't be too heartbroken about it, we weren't too into each other anyway.
But, before I go, I've got some more advice for you.
Please learn to spell. Barring that, please spell as badly as a LOLcat so I can laugh and put it on my blog.
Don't just wink at me and not send a message. That's my job. I might make an exception if you look like Javier Bardem or George Clooney, but if you looked like them you wouldn't be on Match, would you?!?
Don't dis on other people to try to impress me. If I say I don't care about height, don't make fun of short guys. Likewise, don't bitch about how most women lie about their age or weight before you meet me.
Similarly, don't mention your mother too much. That makes me nervous. However, it also makes me nervous if you've cut off ties with any of your close relatives.
I might make an exception on the distance thing, but you'll have to make it worth my while.
I won't make an exception on the 'no separated guys' rule. Don't want to go there - I have enough of my own baggage as it is. Maybe once you're divorced and I'm back on Match we can rethink things, but until then, I'm going to let those other women work out the bugs.
Lastly, T,I know you're still on Match and are logging in frequently, but I resisted the urge to look at your profile. One of these days, I may tell you about cowdude, or I may just do what you did to me and let you find out via Facebook.
L8R, dudes!
Love,
-Old biddy

* I had the automatic 3 month renewal plan, and it was about to bill me, but in reality I haven't been using it at all since October. If I hadn't been in research proposal mode last time, I might have even stopped it then. Now it's three months later and there's another proposal due in two weeks, right around the time I'd have to remember to cancel it.

A Matching Set of Parking Tickets

That's what cowdude and I got while we were on our date today, courtesy of the friendly university parking folks. "A memento," he said.
Anyway, it went well, but in keeping with my general philosophy I'm not blogging much about it. Give me a call or keep an eye out for my email if you want the juicy details.

Match.com upate: Very superstitious

As you may've figured out from the fact that I'm not blogging much, emailing much or playing Bejeweled Blitz very often, things are still progressing entertainingly with cowdude. I'm still superstitious so that is all I'm going to write on the matter.
I'm not superstitious enough to keep from using him as an excuse to stop emailing pinball wizard and Mr Player, however. In the end, I just didn't feel like meeting up with either of them, and took the easy way out.
I did sort of cyberstalk T on Match. I verified that he has a profile, and seems to be logging in often, but due to the non-anonymity of it, I didn't look at his profile. I don't really want to see what's in there, anyway.

A little bit of entertainment at seminar

A few weeks ago one of my 'daily matches' on Match.com was a guy who posted a picture of himself with molecular models.  (For those of you who aren't chemists, those are just plastic structural models of molecules)  I was curious because he wasn't in the chem department but I figured he couldn't be that hard to find.  Sure enough, he was in another department.  He didn't sound like my type but I sent him a wink anyway since I liked the molecular models.
He was at the seminar last week.  I am so glad I never heard back from him.  He was pretty annoying and way too well dressed, which somehow is a turnoff for me. 

Dear Men of Match, continued..

It's not just the separated guys I am wary of, it's the divorced ones too.  Not that I have anything against divorced guys, if they are truly divorced.  I'm not so sure they are, though.  Perhaps I am being cynical, but I am having a hard time believing that all the divorced guys on Match.com who have kids have kids who live at home.  Not away from home, not sometimes at home, but 100% resident kids.  What are the odds?!?  Is there an unusual custody judge here who always sends the kids to live with their dad?  Are they trying to impress the women with how sensitive they are? Hmm...I smell something fishy here....Methinks that some of them are not really divorced.
Back when I was doing the internet dating thing a few years ago, I met a dude who claimed to be never married and in his early 30's.  We had an entertaining email exchange and then made plans to meet for lunch. After he stood me up, I got pissed and realized that some stuff didn't add up.  I got cranky and cyberstalked him (again, it's easy to cyberstalk scientists and academics).  It turned out he was 12 years older than he claimed to be, and there was a picture of him wearing a wedding ring .  That incident made me be a little bit more suspicious and on the lookout for things that don't add up.

Dear Men of Match...

Please do not suggest the 6:00 PM coffee date after work.  It just doesn't work for me. I know it's your way of keeping options open in case things go well or badly, but you are pretty much guaranteeing that I will not be at my best.  I have to leave work early, I don't get a chance to pretty myself up, and, worst of all, I'll be hungry.*   Suck it up and dare to suggest lunch, dinner, or a dessert date, drinks, or coffee after dinner, or, better yet, a hike.
Sincerely,
Old Biddy

P.S.  If you are smart enough to suggest a dessert date, that will pretty much guarantee that I will be at my best and that you will get major bonus points which might be useful later.

P.P.S.  I don't want to tell you this on a first date, but I am a cranky, uncommunicative bitch when I am hungry.

Some people hate coffee dates, but I never had a problem with it until it became this nebulous before dinner thing.  I'm not sure if it's an Ithaca thing or what, but musicprof suggested the exact same agenda as the other dude I met up with, down to the same coffee shop.  It would be rather funny if I ran into the other dude there.  Anyway, I have seminar until 5:45 so I suggested 6:30. We'll see.
I'm sure it spread like a virus. Some couple did the coffeedate after work, and then they took other Match dates there, until it was par for the course for Ithaca Match dates. Now that I am aware, I'll try to steer it to other times.

Match update

I'm exchanging email with a few guys that seem pretty cool.  I won't jinx it by posting about any of them just yet, even though I did tell you about one of them by email.
I also get the occasional complete random introductory emails, like this one from a guy that I have no interest in.
lets go for a nice little hike. and then I will take you out to eat ?
I dont like to eat alone so I would be happy to buy you dinner to have the pleasure of eating with a good looking girl.
Not to sound to much like a guy
 Um, ok, whatever, bad punctuation man.  If it were Javier Bardem I might consider it, but not if it's some random 55 year old who lives 100 miles away.  (OK, I admit, if it were Javier Bardem he could live in Spain and have bad English and I'd still go for a hike with him...)