$ingle Lady #1: Reality vs. Reality vs. Reality: Where does real end and reality begin?

Reality TV changed the way we view television. Scripted dramas, comedies, and even “reality” game shows have a hero, a heroine, and a villain. The storyline has a beginning, a development, and an end - usually, a happy, or at least successful one. Reality TV, in its latest and greatest evolved version, just highlights the mundane, pointless activities of “normal” people’s lives. Big Brother literally watched people sit on the couch. There was an Animal Planet show that filmed cats “living” in a storefront in NYC. Somehow, someway, reality TV always evolves to be more like scripted drama, as the public comes to expect the stars to behave a certain way. The Hills started out as “reality,” until they got famous and had to start scripting Normal Young Adult Behavior or the American public would stop relating. Delightfully, Jersey Shore seems to be able to avoid this. Their cast members gained almost immediate notoriety, apparently, even during the filming of Season One back in July/August, a rare feat for R-TV. People would see the cameras and yell malicious things towards the cast members, usually involving a barely coherent version of “go back to Jersey!” (Newsflash Haters: Seaside IS in Jersey”. Instead of changing the format to avoid the hooligans, MTV embraced them. The cameras dash after Ronnie like a scene from the Blair Witch Project, usually just missing the crushing blow and only capturing the poor, unconscious loser on the floor of the Boardwalk. The duck phone rings. Ronnie just got in a fight on the Boardwalk! Note: “fight” = 15 seconds of rugby-“snuggle”-style clutching each other with an occasionally misplaced punch. Holy bananas Batman! Pauly D’s shoes are magically already sitting by his feet, tongues depressed, laces untied, ready to slip on at a moment’s notice. The Situation doesn’t appear to bother to put shoes on at all. In a flash, they’re dashing off down the street to get in on the action. Thanks to MTV’s genius marketing execs staring Controversy in the face and inviting it to Sunday tea, all of America watches, riveted, every Thursday night. These people can’t possibly be like this in “real” life. Nobody lives like this!

Thanks to US Weekly and Rolling Stone magazine I can confirm that they are. Yesterday I had lunch with the entire cast. Pauly D actually fist-pumped during his introduction. The moderator never referred to the individuals in the couple, choosing instead an inferior Brangelina-style “RonnieandSammi.” The Situation’s face was lit up like a jack-o-lantern. Snooki gave a live demonstration of how to rock the “pouf.” (In case you haven’t heard, she invented it- not generations of women putting their makeup on) JWoww apparently started a fight in LAX prior to catching the red-eye back to New York. Who fights before a red-eye? Reality TV didn’t change the way we watch television. Reality TV changed the way we define reality.

On the eHarmony login page there’s a quote from “Theresa,” saying “I felt like I tried everything. Bars, clubs, all that stuff. Finding eHarmony felt like a new beginning. Now a real relationship seems possible.” Apparently, this is reality dating. And apparently, it’s real.

Time to take this puppy into the realm of real reality. Bring on the dates!

Reality is real. Pass it on.

$ingle lady #2 - How to pregame for your date

It’s official – I have one eHarmony date under my belt. It also happened to be completely impromptu. I also happened to have 4 rum and diet cokes before it started, and I also happened to have another guy with me on the date. I’ll elaborate:

Steve sent a text saying that he had just gotten out of work, and could we get drinks tomorrow? Well considering I am already double-booked with Ben and lobby boy for tonight, that simply would not do. So I said, I am at happy hour right now if you’d like to join, and he did. I was with my friends K and R, but Steve took a while and by the time he arrived, I had been at happy hour for three hours. Wooops. And K left when he arrived, leaving me with my first eH date and R along as the third wheel - I hope he had fun. I guess it went fine but I’m sure I talked too much (rum and diets have that effect on me), and today I’m sporting a killer headache.

On to tonight’s date! Ben and I will be meeting at 8pm, so I wore one of my best ‘sexual professional’ outfits to work today. I’m currently crafting my get-out-of-CPK-with-lobby-boy text; hopefully he will understand that Ben is cuter and for the blog, eH dates have to take precedence over guys I meet in real life. I was told that I should try to have two dates in one night (would lobby boy care to catch a 5:30pm dinner at Olive Garden?) but I don’t think I’m ready for that kind of Sex and the City move (remember when Charlotte does two dates in one night but gets caught? Yikes).

Off to find some Advil,

$L#2

$ingle lady #2, please report to the principal's office

Today I am slightly annoyed at eHarmony. They scolded me! AND some freak match of mine named Jeff who I had already forgotten about, is the one who got me in trouble. Below is the email I received from eH:

"Jeff has requested that we "nudge" you because you have not responded to his latest request for communication. "Nudge" is a friendly way of saying "I am very interested in getting to know you better, please login and start communicating with me."

To maximize your experience with eHarmony, we recommend that you communicate with every match that you receive. Many of our successful couples almost passed each other by because of something they read. By communicating with every match regardless of initial impressions, they found their soul mate."

Nudged! I was NUDGED! Really? I promptly closed Jeff for being so damn pushy and for tattling on me. But Jeff isn't the only one - Andre also sent me a message to say that he hadn't heard from me and was hoping I'd respond. I toyed with closing him as well for being impatient but haven't so far. But back to eHarmony's email. Are they serious? I'm supposed to communicate with every match they send me? Please keep in mind that I get no less than 10 per day. This is like a full-time job. And they can forget about me communicating with the woof-ers. And I feel like they are bullying me - your soul mate is one of these guys and with one swift click of the mouse you might lose him forever!! Give me a break.

But joking aside, I think that eH is confused about why their system works. In my opinion, the system works because everyone on there wants to be in a relationship, which means you've eliminated half the battle. Haven't we all met a great guy who we got along with so well, but he didn't want to be tied down to one girl? Maybe if he had been interested in settling down, we would have lived happily ever after and made our friends barf making claims that we were "soul mates."

xoxo, sl2

$ingle Lady #1: Share. Flush. Take Turns.

All I really need to know in life I learned in Kindergarten. Everyone has heard/seen this somewhere before. A quick Google search brings me the list. Share everything (CDC revision: “except the H1N1 virus”). Don’t hit people. Say sorry. Flush. Check. Check (except for the occasional, totally justified bar fight). Check. Check. One thing I was surprised wasn’t on there was Take turns. Teaching me this skill, I’m pretty sure, is the reason my mom birthed my baby sister.

But what is the protocol on eHarmony? They are very clear about turn taking for the opening rounds. Your questions, your answers, his questions, his answers, your questions, his questions. No cheating. No skipping ahead (unless you’re eager beaver Wesley). Then you get to Open Communication and they stop patrolling. The icon on my list is never-ending on “Send _____ an eHarmony Email!” With so many guys in my current rotation, it is impossible to keep track. Also, as a huge fan of The Guy Makes the First Move, if it’s my turn after our final essay question back-and-forth, is it up to me to reach out? Alan apparently thinks so, as does Bill.
I’m on the fence, mostly because of the dreaded Holiday Timeline (a fear of mine recently confirmed via Facebook status update by friend D). For those unfamiliar, it’s the period of time roughly spanning Halloween to St. Patrick’s Day of the Grey Dating Area. If one starts dating another during that time period, there are a lot of relationship questions that need to be answered way ahead of schedule. Do we need to spend Halloween together (arguably one of the drunkest [read: bad decision-making] nights of the year)? Do I need to tell my entire extended family about him at Thanksgiving dinner? Do I get her a Hanukah/Christmas/Kwanzaa present? Do I spend New Year’s Eve with him? Assuming I made plans a decade in advance like one needs to and they don’t include him, is it ok if I kiss someone else at midnight? How do we handle celebrating MLK day? And worst of all, dreaded V-day. The Grey period ends with St. Patrick’s Day (the second arguably drunkest day of the year). It begins in New York an entire week prior with a mass exodus to Hoboken, where you’re probably going to vomit green beer on his leprechaun outfit while attending a “house” party thrown by someone you’ve never met before. If you can survive all of this, you’re in it for the long haul. Phew, no thank you.

And so I make my first Rule of EHarmony Dating: do not attend more than 1 date prior to Valentine’s Day with each potential match. That way, the grey area is really more of a dirty cream, and no Talks have to happen prematurely.

Dater update: Chris, 30, New York, United States has pulled ahead and we’re now emailing. He begins with a taunt about how the Giants stole our defensive coordinator, and a note that he is 100% Italian, and thus would have Robert DeNiro play him in a movie. He’s admitted to having zero knowledge of pop culture, which I more than make up for in our Better Halves. I expect multiple emails prior to a date ask, but age seems to have a direct correlation to time-spent-between-communications, so maybe we’ll flash forward by the weekend.

xo,
$L#1

$ingle lady #2: Had I known this would lead to dates...

This weekend I left the comfort of my eHarmony profile and tried to be a Jersey Shore cast member, meaning that I was doing a lot of "creeping." When our friend took a tumble down the stairs and had to go to the ER for some head staples, my friend R and I decided that was our cue to leave and go to the bar. After we arrived back home I met some hunnies in the lobby and I got a call from one of them today. After playing his voicemail on speakerphone ("Hi, this is Ryan from Friday night...we met in the lobby." Yipes, I'm embarrassing), my friends informed me that it was a good message and I should definitely call him back for a date (he said he really wanted to take me to California Pizza Kitchen). I on the other hand, disagreed wholeheartedly. Did you hear the way he said his NAME? And WHY did he leave his number twice when I can clearly see it on my Bberry? And since I'm pretty sure I'm not in 8th grade, I don't want to go to CPK.

Apparently I'm too picky, and I realized it's because I don't really feel like dating. I don't feel like meeting new people. I don't feel like going to California Pizza Kitchen. I don't feel like telling 5 different guys the same things about me. I love hot dogs, I don't recycle, I like skinny celebrities, blah blah blah...(I guess in theory I'd be finding out new things about them, but that also sounds boring.)

Anyway, none of this applies to Ben because he is hot, and while writing this post he sent me a message and it looks like we will meet up this week. Also an in-person meeting with Steve seems to be on the horizon. I'm having trouble keeping all these cyber and real-life men straight...and considering that I don't even want to go dates, I may have accidentally triple booked myself for tomorrow.

-$ingle lady #2

$ingle Lady #1: I am not attractive to people from Staten Island

It's official. I am not attractive to people from Staten Island (note: not "not attracted to," although so far the Eharmony variety hasn't been promising). I've been Closed by every single match from there. Guess my dream to live like the Jersey Shore (or at least date The Situation) isn't going to work out. PJ, from somewhere far off in New Jersey Closed communication because the physical distance between us is too great - and at a healthy 5'7" I couldn't agree more.

Dustin hasn't responded to my email. I'm concerned he's been scared off by my Grand Disclaimer and may not do that again. Sorry Moral Compasses. On the other hand, he could be waiting for his better half, Alan to make a move. My conspiracy paranoia is starting to get the best of me though, as I'm 99% certain I saw Neal in DSW today, and promptly ran away.

In an effort to expand my hobbies so I have something to respond when guys ask me what I do in my free time, I purchased extremely adorable workout gear today - mostly in an attempt to placate all my matches who enjoy "running in Central Park" with their dates. The poor guys won't know what hit them when I stroll up, wheezing from the walk from the subway, sweating and red faced like no other. At least I'll have a cute top on. Dating is exhausting!

'til next time,
$ingle Lady #1

$ingle Lady #1: Hot or Not

At the third request of “Great pic! Would love to see more photos…” I conceded. I added 5 more Facebook profile photos, mostly close up face shots because, let’s face it, they’re just checking to make sure I’m hot from other angles. I did add one group shot (of my football watching ladies’ holiday card) for a direct height comparison. Yes, I really am 5’10”. One of my photos was rejected. I think I’m showing too much arm.

Apparently, I only look hot in a football jersey. Ryan (“Ronnie,” the first to send that ice breaker, and the one with the profile photo of him hoisting two unwilling females into the air) promptly closed communication, due to “Other,” which, as now a seasoned user of the Close button, I know means “you’re not cute enough for me.” Maybe I should re-think these extra photos…

Wesley, bless his heart, is still holding out that I’ll respond to his emails. It seems to be bad form to just not respond (silly passive-aggressive me!), so I suppose I’ll have to Close communication with him at some point.

xo,
$ingle Lady #1