What I saw that day made me seriously not want to have sex…

I am so glad that I don’t have to online date anymore.  Life with The Phone Sex Operator (P.S.O., AKA my girlfriend) is awesome.  We have a great relationship and I seriously believe that she is “The One”.  My love life wasn’t always awesome.  It used to suck, and not in a good way.

Once upon a time I was looking for love online and if you’ve ever done it you know that it’s a crapshoot at best.  I’m not going to mention which site I met P.S.O. on, but I will say that if things keep going well, one day you may just see us on TV as one of their success stories.

Let me start by saying that I’m absolutely not a shallow person.  I’m not George Clooney or Brad Pitt and I wasn’t looking for Barbie.  What I ended up with was a beautiful, funny, charming, intelligent, loving woman.  I wouldn’t trade her and who she is for anyone in the world.  Seriously.  The people I saw online before I met her were a mix of good and bad.  More bad than good.  W A Y more bad than good!

This is not a diatribe on weight and size.  I don’t need to hear from the BBW chicks saying I’m slamming on them.  I’m not.  What I am ranting about today are people who view themselves in a way that’s not realistic.  If you’re big, you’re big.  That’s cool.  I could lose a few pounds, so I’m not judging.

Before we met in person, P.S.O. told me on several occasions that she had “a little junk in the trunk”.  I think she looks amazing.  Did I mention how lucky I am to be with her?

What is it about people and their inability to be honest about who they are?  I think these dating sites should have guidelines as to what “athletic” means and what “average” really is.  The dictionary lists average as “being intermediate between extremes”.  To me that means that you’re not fat and you’re not skinny.  You’re not the Olson Twins, but neither are you Mama Cass.

I’m not saying I have anything against fat chicks.  I’ve dated a couple of Women who could lose more than a few pounds.  I’d like to say that they were both nice people and that their personality made them fun to be around.  I’d be lying if I said that because one of them was a straight up bitch.  The other was moderately snotty.  I used to not have good judgment.  Now I do.

Back in the day, I knew that when I was filling out my dating Profile I shouldn’t call myself athletic.  Just because I play ice hockey does not mean I have an athletic physique.  Likewise with some of these women, just because you do some sort of physical activity you are not automatically “athletic”.

Here’s a message to the women whose profiles list bowling as a sport they play:  Bowling is NOT a sport.  It’s a recreational activity.  Anything you can do with an alcoholic beverage in one hand isn’t a sport.  There’s nothing wrong with bowling, but you can’t seriously think that bowlers are athletes, can you?  I mean, when was the last time a bowler was nominated for Athlete of the Year?

People need a dose of reality and if they can’t admit who they really are, they need to watch the beginning of the movie Back to School.  Rodney Dangerfield’s character, Thornton Mellon, has a great line:

“Hi there. Are you a large person? Pleasantly plump? A little on the hefty side, perhaps? Well, let’s face it: Are you FAT? When you go jogging, do you leave pot-holes? When you make love, do you have to give directions? At the zoo, do the elephants throw YOU peanuts? Do you look at a menu and say ‘OK…’”

After deciding to write this today I bumped around one of the bigger dating sites (PlentyOfFish) to do a bit of research.  I did an advanced search and put in women between 35 and 45 within 25 miles of my zip code.  I left every criteria open except for body type.  I put “average” in as the body type I wanted.  I didn’t care how much money they made, what sign they were, what they were looking for (dating, long-term, etc…) all I wanted to see were pictures of women who considered themselves to be average.  I got more than 700 results and here is what I found:

The first one to pop up in my list had only one picture, and it was from the shoulders up.  The face was pretty plump, but since I couldn’t see the body I’ll call this one a draw.  On to the next profile.

This one had a head shot with a very round face and a full body shot, but the full shot was taken from a distance.  It showed no facial features and it appeared as if she was a bit on the hefty side, but still not sure.  Time for number three.

Three is “looking for a blk male”.  Obviously she needs a spelling tutor.  Her lone picture is from the waist up and suffice it to say that she is far from the dictionary definition of average.  She is carrying a lot of weight and it appears that it’s not all in the chest area.  Let’s call her #1 on the “Wrong Category” list.

As I went through page after page of these women I came to two conclusions.  The first is that try though they may, animal prints do NOT hide the fact that you’re a big woman.  My second conclusion is that I am a very, very lucky man to have found P.S.O.

Today wasn’t as bad as some days that I’ve viewed women’s profiles online (I haven’t searched since we started dating.  I believe in something called monogamy).  Maybe it’s because today was just for pure research.  In the past there have been many days/nights when I have gone online, clicked on a profile and quickly shut my eyes and yelled “holy crap!” at what I saw looking back at me.

I vividly remember (too vividly in fact) going online a year ago, opening up one profile in particular and seeing a really fat chick in a bikini.  She was trying to look cute, but the reality is that there was no way in hell that this one should have ever been within 150 pounds of a bikini.  When I go to the beach I don’t take my shirt off.  You know why I don’t?  It’s because I shouldn’t.  No one wants to see me with my shirt off (The Phone Sex Operator says she does, but that’s a different story).

What I saw that day made me seriously not want to have sex—not that I was in any danger of getting laid that night.  Before I went online I remember thinking that I would spend a little quality time alone later on (if you know what I mean), but the picture of the chick in the bikini killed it for me.

This was not the first picture that made me shudder and I thank God that I no longer have to subject myself to filtering through profile after profile of women who can’t get a handle on who they really are.  Guys are into all kinds of women but women have to be in the right place to find the right guy.  If you’re still doing the online dating thing, take a long look in the mirror and put yourself in the right category.  If you don’t like what you see, put yourself in the right category anyway and start working towards getting yourself where you want to be.

If you’ve got any good online dating stories of people not being who they say, please let me know.  I would love to hear them…

J.R.

Related Post:  Truth in Advertising