Public Self-Mockery

I'm getting ready to indulge in a bit of self-humiliation, potentially, so bear with me.

Hopefully, it will prove entertaining to you, Dear Reader.

Until this past Saturday, I hadn't been on a proper date in 18 months. It didn't particularly bother me - I didn't lie awake in bed at night wondering why boys don't like me, or anything - but it's kind of nice to have a man other than your father take you to lunch/dinner occasionally, and if I want to get married before I turn 50, I decided I'd have to make a change in my current MO, dating-wise.

Mind you, until recently, my current MO, dating-wise, was to ogle good looking men out of the corner of my eye while buying almond crackers in the "Special Diets" area of Whole Foods.

A friend had mooted the idea of joining eHarmony, a while back, and I decided I'd do it.

So, I'm now swimming in the murky waters of internet dating.

I didn't realize it would be quite so complicated.

First of all, I've thought myself to be fairly open-minded about appearances, lately. I'd see some decent-looking fellow - but by no means "a looker" - on the street and think, "Hm. Yeah, I could date that."

That attitude doesn't really work in internet dating, though, because then you will end up doing nothing but responding to the not-too-impressive-looking and rather shrimpy fellows and wasting time communicating with them when, in reality, you'd rather chuck them for the ridiculously good-looking professor who just emailed you. As it is, I spend 1-2 hours per day culling the herd, so to speak, so I can devote more time to the 4-5 "most promising" gentlemen with whom I'm corresponding.

So, my superficial tendencies - which I was so proud of myself for supposedly overcoming! - are back in full swing.

Then, too, there's the eHarmony concept of "guided communication," in which there is a carefully choreographed set of moves and steps you take before you send someone an email. You can, if desired, override this method and just send someone an email, too.

I've found, by and large, that most of the gentlemen on eHarm get to about step two (out of 4 steps, the 4th being email) and say, "Oh, to hell with this. Here's my email address. I can't stand any more of the guided insanity. I think you're gorgeous and intelligent. Respond if you'd like to."

Sometimes I respond. Other times, however, I go along with the guided communication , even though it can be tedious, particularly if you're already prepared to marry one of your matches, as I currently am, although I have yet to meet him, or even speak to him on the telephone, or even exchange an email.

I kid. (sort of - he is, quite literally, a long-standing and highly unlikely fantasy of mine come true).

I've already had one date, and it went well (I think?) and have another one, this Thursday. The amount of time I spend preoccupied with my wardrobe, trying to decide what to wear, has increased in tandem with the volume of emails in my eHarm inbox.

Hopefully, I won't end up with a case of "first date fatigue."

Grad School: Semester II

It's been a helter skelter kind of semester, this time around. Not as deadline driven (last semester, we had a project due every two weeks for the first six weeks), but still busy.

Part of the problem is that there aren't as many hard and fast deadlines, I think. There isn't the sense of immediacy I felt, last semester, that kept me working working working all the time.

I am, however, more satisfied at this point in the semester. The prospect of spending the rest of the semester on this one project - a museum of new media - is definitely a bright one, for me.

My other classes are also going well - I'm taking a Writing, Architecture, and the City course, and a Community Development Workshop class, and a Technology course (structures, environmental control systems, etc.). Last semester, the tech course was awful. We shared it with about 100 undergrads (in theory, at any rate, as most of them never showed up) and the course was geared towards where they were in their semester, with little or no correlation to our projects.

This semester, the grad students have a Tech course all to ourselves, and we're pretty much creating the class as it goes along, telling the professor where we are and what we need. It's a tech course as tech courses should be taught for designers, easily applicable to our studio projects.

Regardless, the semester work is keeping me quite busy. So busy that I'm hardly able to blog, what with the writing for my Writing class, creative writing, studio work, and community workshop work. Lots to do...