Pittsburgh Internet Dating Stories

NOTE: CANCELED DUE TO WEATHER.
We’ll let you know when it’s rescheduled.

On Tuesday, February 12 @ 7PM, Cathy Day will be reading from her book, Comeback Season: How I Learned to Play the Game of Love, at the Joseph Beth Booksellers in the Southside Works, 2705 E Carson St.

In 2005 Cathy an Indiana native, moved to Pittsburgh to start her dream job. She was 37, a college professor at Pitt, an acclaimed writer—and still single. Psyching herself up, she thought, “This is the year for the Colts and for me.” Instead, both Day and quarterback Peyton Manning faced heartbreaking end-of-season losses: the man in her life decided to punt, and the Colts fell to the Pittsburgh Steelers, the eventual Super Bowl champs. Her blue heart broken, Day vowed that if the Colts could come back in 2006 and try again, so can she.

Come pre-season, Day reluctantly joined an online dating service and went on practice dates while the Colts played practice games. Indy went 1-4 in the pre-season, which was better than Day’s record of 0-4. Lonely and dejected, Day returned home to watch Colts games with her family, who were full of well-intentioned relationship advice—much of it bad.

The 2006 season finally arrived. Each week that fall, the Colts battled a new adversary, and Day faced her enemies: her own romanticism, indecisive men, and her biggest foe, the singles industry. Friends and family delivered impassioned pep talks but could only watch anxiously from the sidelines as Day marched bravely into bars and coffee shops to meet perfect strangers. On the way to the Super Bowl, she discovered that the key to winning—in both love and football—exists somewhere between Trying Everything and Letting Go.

When I heard about Cathy’s book and reading, and emailed her to see if I could include some of her experiences on this blog. She was very gracious:

Hi Blue Eyes:

I am so glad someone pointed me to your blog a few months ago. I wish I’d known about it (or maybe it didn’t exist yet) when I was going through the experience myself. I think my book and your blog are coming from the same place…a way to make sense of and laugh at the situation.

You rock,

Cathy Day
www.cathyday.com

So on one of my slow dating days, I’ll share some of Cathy’s experiences. Meanwhile – I hope to see you at her reading: Tuesday, February 12 @ 7PM, at the Joseph Beth Booksellers in the Southside Works, 2705 E Carson St.

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Susan is a Love Goddess-In-Training – a hopeless romantic with a feisty, feminist edge who aspires to be more than a “Take a Tylenol and Wonder Why the Hell Dating Hasn’t Improved in 20 Years” kind of woman. She likes her alone time and herself, but darned if she doesn’t keep jumping into the murky waters of online dating, speed dating, and blind dates. We didn’t say she was smart. You can find her adventures on One-Woman Show – one woman’s tales of juggling life, laundry and love. Susan agreed to let me reprint her findings on the Pittsburgh on-line dating scene:

——–

Well, I knew I couldn’t avoid this question forever — you know, seeing that February is the month of LOVE (and Black History month, Groundhog Day, President’s Day, the Oscars, my car registration renewal, tax preparation time…). But it’s only fair that I tell you what happened after dazzling you and the millions who read my stories of excitement and chemistry here on my blog.

(Hey, those of you who really read the last several Love Goddess posts, just keep quiet, ‘kay?)

Here’s my topline summary of Susan’s Online Dating Experiment: Part Something-Something

Key Finding: One Woman’s Science is Another Woman’s Hell

In my opinion, Chemistry.com was definitely better than e-Harmony in providing me with more matches more often — and with fewer painstaking questions. But after 6-7 weeks of pretty much zip in results I decided I preferred a site where I could see who was out there, have an opportunity to interact with more people – on my terms – and leave the matchy-match decisions to moi, not some “scientific screening process”. After all, I know what I want and like — I’m a an analytical, scientific kind of gal!

Sure, sometimes I breeze through recipes and mistake the little (t)easpoon for a (T)ablespoon, and I singed my eyebrows lighting the barbeque that one time, and I never took Chemistry or Physics, but I’m very qualified.

Where was I?

Key Finding: People You Treat with Respect and Kindness Will Respond in Kind…Most of the Time

I signed off of Chemistry and signed onto Match.com for a month. What was another $35 in the pursuit of love? Even Dr. Phil was on board.

I received several winks and emails on Match, and I emailed a few guys myself. I responded back to every email and most of the winks I received. Maybe it’s stupid – unnecessary and a time waster – maybe it’s sweet as some guys wrote to me, but it’s always been my policy to respond back. I figure if someone took the time to contact me in a tactful and respectful manner the least I can do is to send a polite, kind “I’m flattered, but no thanks.” Besides, I type fast. And I did.

For the most part everyone was gracious, although a guy occasionally would get confused: What’s wrong? Why don’t you think we’re a match? Is it the way I look? Or the one guy who USED CAPITAL LETTERS AND WROTE THAT HE LIKED TO LAUGH A LOT AND MAKE PEOPLE LAUGH AND HE WAS REALLY FUNNY LOL!!!! He told me I’d owe him $35 if I didn’t go out with him – HA, HA. I had no desire to go out with a cap-locked madman, but emailed him my standard “thanks but no thanks, best of luck.” His response: “OH, WELL, YOUR LOSS!!!”, which I imagined was meant to be read aloud with a maniacal laugh.

Note that he wrote me about a week later with a new pick-up line, apparently forgetting he had already been rejected. Delete. (LOL!!!)

And then there was the other guy — the one I had gone out with after this summer’s speed dating event. He emailed me, not recognizing me from before. I sent him a nice reminder that we’d already met and had gone out. (Unspoken words: we didn’t click, dude.) His response:

“Yes, now I remember you. Sorry I didn’t make the connection. Are your pictures recent? If so, you look like you’ve lost some weight. You look good in your pictures.
I hope you are well. Good luck.”

Mmmm. Apparently I made a larger impression in person. (Interestingly enough, one of the photos I posted was taken one week after I met him, and the other 2+ months after our date. And I weigh exactly the same as I did then.)

Key Finding: You Got to Know When to Hold ‘Em, Know When to Fold ‘Em

A month later, I had had dates with two nice, respectable men I didn’t click with, and I had been in communication, sort of, with a 33 year-old who liked to text me every 5 days with insightful, relationship-building comments like “how r u?” (After re-reviewing his profile, I also saw that I had overlooked the part about him living with roommates. Oops.)

I decided I had had enough — enough of men, emails, and online dating. I accepted online dating was a great way to connect with people I probably wouldn’t meet otherwise, but it wasn’t destined to be my ticket to happiness. I even commented as much on Terry Hernon MacDonald’s great Dating Advice (Almost Daily) blog and her post about Your Internet Profile.

I gave out a nondescript personal email address to 2 guys I had been emailing (and, yes, even Roomie) and signed off, this time for good.

Key Finding: It’s Smart to Listen to Terry (and Oprah, Buddha and Others)

A funny thing happened when I signed off of online dating. I exchanged an email or two with each guy at my home email. I already knew I didn’t have much interest in the one so, despite my “email in kind” policy, I let it peter out. Roomie texted me “hey” one day. That was it. I deleted it. I had my LASIK procedure and was lackadaisical about pretty much everything…except I finally talked by phone with my other match. We had a pleasant conversation, and a few days later he asked me to lunch.

We were surprised when we met. Really surprised. It turns out we had similar outlooks on life, relationships, family, etc. and liked each other. We clicked and I guess you could say we’ve been clicking ever since.

I’ve read and heard many times that if you ask the universe for what you want, it will give it to you. I also believe you have to take chances in life, risks and all. (See my refrigerator magnet: Leap and the Net will Appear.) I don’t know if the universe had a hand in this, or if meeting him was plain dumb luck, but right now we’re enjoying getting to know each other. It’s early, very early so I can’t say much more, but I will say I’ve been happily distracted. I may have even changed my opinion about online dating.

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Boyce is an experienced male serial dater who trawled plentyoffish.com for
several years. He shared this:

I love women of all faiths, but here’s my ranking of women’s hotness in bed by religion, from hottest to coldest:

1. Lapsed Catholics
2. Divorced Jewish women seeking goy boy toys
3. Atheists/Agnostics
4. Mainstream Protestants (Methodist, United Presbyterian)
5. Practicing Catholics
6. Unitarians (Too politically correct)
7. Fundamentalist Protestants (though being a “Preacher’s Kid” helps a lot)
8. Wiccans/Spiritualists/New Agers (Smelly … and no food in the house)
9. Single, never married Jewish women

Notes:

There are exceptions to the above, and I have no background research on Buddhists, Hindus or Muslims. This is just my experience.

Anglican/Episcopal congregations are full of men and women who desire the negative view of sexuality of the Catholic Church … but don’t want to take the chance of possibly sitting next to poor people in church.

Lapsed Catholics along with atheists experience the least amount of guilt following a sexual encounter. Anglicans are actually really bad with post-coital guilt. This comes from British roots where the women realize they should have been closing their eyes and “thinking of England” and the men realize they should have been blowing some other British pansy.

I don’t know how large Boyce’s data set was but I’d be interested in other men’s experiences. I have my own theory about lapsed Catholic women which I may share in another post…

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Are Pittsburghers Provincial? You be the judge. Here are some lines collected from Pittsburgh internet dating profiles:

What language(s) do you speak, read or write?

English, why learn any other crap when I live in my own country.

What language(s) do you speak, read or write?

I speak English, some sign language in bad traffic, Body language,
I speak it and read it.

What language(s) do you speak, read or write?

What do you think???? DUH!!!

Where were you born? List some of the places you have lived or traveled.

I’m a local, borned and raised near Pittsburgh.

Where were you born? List some of the places you have lived or traveled.

Pa
traveling…well, I’ve been to sea world

What are some of your life-long goals? Where would you like to be in 2
years? In 5 years?

in a house

favorite hot spots:

BARS ARE OK. I DO NOT DRINK BUT LIKE TO GO HAVE FUN.
IT DOES NOT BOTHER ME IF YOU DRINK BUT I DO NOT LIKE FIGHTS WHEN YOU DRINK.

What does this say about us?

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When I first started on Match.com, an online dating veteran told me that it was useless to wink or email men (“if they’ve seen your photo and haven’t made the first move they are not interested”), so at the beginning I didn’t and just waited for men to make the first move.

Taking the exact opposite tactic is CUTIE, a very attractive Pittsburgh woman in her late-30′s, who gets over 1,000 winks or emails a week from men. She searches actively to find men that meet her criteria and winks at potential dates. If they email back, she immediately sets up a meeting. Because she is so attractive and accomplished – she’s a very successful professional – she will sometimes have 4 “coffees” a day and up to 20 a week until she finds the right guy.

Tactics will be strongly related to goals. Since I had no goal other than to explore dating again after 22 years, and was not looking for a something serious, my laissez-faire attitude was probably appropriate. CUTIE’s approaching finding “Mr. Right” very aggressively – She has a biological clock ticking.

Pittsburgh Women: What have you have found works for you? Any tips to share with other women who are also exploring online dating?

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I joke I live in Pleasantville, but it’s only Mt. Lebanon. Everyone seems to know everyone, they all go to the Friday night football games, the moms all stay home and bake cookies and work in the PTA , or seem to. Like in Lake Wobegon, all the kids are above average. This last point is an indisputable, proven by the fact that 80% of the high school student body is on the honor roll, the high honor roll, or the highest honor roll, and the senior class medium QPA is hovering close to 4.0. (I am making this up, but I think it’s true)

One tradition we have on our street is the Ladies’ Neighborhood Happy Hour, recently changed to Ladies’ Neighborhood Respite Hour for reasons unknown to me. We rotate homes and get together every Friday at 5:00 for an hour of socializing.I can’t make them all, but I get to as many as possible.

The ladies on our street range form young mothers in their mid 30′s to grandmas in their 70′s. Most are married, but we have 2 divorced and dating ladies in our group, Shelly and I, and we both like to talk. Luckily the married ladies tolerate our stories and are quick to give us their advice.

A few weeks ago, we were at Shelly’s house. She had a dilemma and wanted advice. Shelly is sharp and intellectual woman in her early 50′s and much more picky about her dates than I am. I’ll have a coffee with anybody – I just don’t see the harm. I have yet to lose control because of a double espresso and allow a man to take advantage of me. But Shelly prefers to vet her dates through long email exchanges (she’s a writer) and will only then move to the telephone, and then, if they are lucky, they get a face-to-face meeting.

A good looking 38-year pediatric oncologist (I’ll call him PEDON) had emailed her, and despite the 17-year age difference, she had decided to email back. He was witty, articulate, and interesting, but made it clear in his emails that he didn’t want an internet pen-pal – he wanted to meet her.

Shelly was torn. She passed around copies of the emails and asked the neighborhood girls what to do.

It’s so much easier to make decisions for others – every single lady, including the very proper wife of a local politician, told Shelly to go for it. They all had dating advice, despite the fact that some hadn’t dated in 50 years or more.

Somehow dating can seem like so much more fun when someone else is doing it.

Shelly took the advice and got together with PEDON. At the next Happy Hour we found out how it had worked out. They had met at Mitchell’s Fish Market at the Galleria for a drink, and had gotten along well. He was genuinely attracted to older women.

But 2 weeks later it was all over. He had ended it because he felt she wasn’t serious enough – he was looking for a long term partner, some one he would settle down with and spend the rest of his life with. Shelly, recently divorced after 30 years of marriage, wasn’t ready for that yet, and he was moving on.

It does make you question conventional wisdom. I always ignored the winks and emails from much younger men because I assumed they were looking for something superficial. Maybe next time I’ll wink back.

That would be the advice of FRIEND who earlier commented on an earlier post:

"I guess I am too old and too tied down for the almost 50 year old playboy set, hmmm, maybe there’s a reason my boyfriend is 35. What do they say about not teaching old dogs new tricks? Always wanted a puppy when I was little…… dreams do come true."

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I love Pittsburgh. It’s so different than any other place I have lived, and I find it fascinating. Pittsburgh natives seem to really love their neighborhoods, and can be reluctant to venture out of them.

I met ZZUG for a beer on a Thursday night, and SOUTH HILLS for a beer on Friday. I liked SOUTH HILLS, but he was going to the Bahamas the next day for a week, and I ended up dating ZZUG instead.

When SOUTH HILLS came back we went out again, and I told him I had started seeing ZZUG. He was skeptical that it could work out – I lived in Mt. Lebanon and ZZUG lived in Cranberry. SOUTH HILLS had dated a women in Cranberry once and it had been too far to drive. He suggested I stick to the south hills of Pittsburgh, especially since I had a house full of teenagers.

“What are you going to do if things progress?” he asked. “He can’t stay at your place. And it’s too far to drive to his place, especially since you can’t stay the night. You’ll have to get a hotel room.”

The idea of getting a hotel room seemed kind of fun, but it never happened. It didn’t work out, but it was because of another woman not the distance – in fact the other woman lived 600 miles away.

Snce then I have encountered the Pittsburgh distance issue many times. Sometimes I’m a little thick about it, especially since I get emails from men in Ohio and West Virgina who tell me they have no problem crossing state lines to see me. Then I discover guys in Pittsburgh who won’t even cross a bridge.

One such man is HAMPTON. A nice guy from the North Hills. I have a seminar every other Monday night at the Holiday Inn off McKnight Rd., so every other week for the last 6 weeks we have met for a beer close to there before my seminar started. This is a very controlled “date” – we have about a hour and a half to talk before I need to get to class.

HAMPTON had told me many times that I was really out of his driving range – it was a rare woman who could entice him into the South Hills. I have a healthy ego, and thought I just might be rare enough. I decided to go out on a limb and suggested we meet on a Friday night for a “real” date. He asked if I would be willing to meet him in the north hills and I said I was.

The night before we were to meet my 17 year old daughter had some type of stomach bug, and I was up all night with her (about the only time a teenager still wants her mom close by is when she is vomiting or needs money).  I was tired and I had to cancel our date. When I called HAMPTON he said it was fine, he had never really considered me “girlfriend material” and we could keep meeting for our Monday night beer. I thanked him for understanding and hung up.

I took me about 30 seconds to call him back. “What do you mean, I am not girlfriend material?” My ego was obviously not all that healthy and I was a little piqued.HAMPTON gave his reasons, and they were (in order) :

1. I lived in Mt. Lebanon, and that was really too far to drive
2. I was seeing other guys and had made it clear to him that I was not ready to settle down

Well, I can’t fault him for #2 – but I still am a wee bit upset that he didn’t think I was worth the 25 minute ride. I may only have a half hour for a beer with him on Monday.

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I moved here 10 years ago form Washington DC, and moved not only to the Pittsburgh area, but into Pleasantville (otherwise known as Mt. Lebanon) a quaint old fashioned neighborhood where the kid walk to school, the moms are active in the PTA, and the neighbors get together for happy hours and block parties.

Having lived all over North America, and in much more transient places (DC, San Francisco, Toronto, Boston, Montreal) I quickly learned that everyone knows everyone in Pittsburgh, and you really didn’t have any secrets. Which is fine with me because I don’t have many – I try to live my life as an open book.

The first time I dated through Match.com (after I went off for a week or two to re-group after my first date he told me to get a boob job) I had about 8 coffees, picked the guy I liked the most, and informed him that I was going to see him exclusively. ZZUG was not sure this was a good idea – he suggested I shop around for a while, but I said that after 20 years of being with the same guy, I was barely up to dating at all, and certainly not capable of juggling multiple dates and I had picked him. Since his profile was impossible and he wasn’t getting a lot of activity himself, he didn’t complain. We dated for 6 weeks.

When that didn’t work out, and I went back up on Match, I decided to try another tactic. I decided to shop as he suggested, and met and went out with a lot of “prospects.” I was honest with all of them – explaining that I was not even divorced yet and not ready to settle down soon – no point jumping out of the frying pan right into another one. Might as well jump into the fire for a while and see if I could take the heat.

This has lead to a few interesting encounters. “Date A” picked me up one morning to take me out, and as soon as I sat down in his car, he asked me how “Date B” was doing. I looked at him in surprise – I did not know that he knew “B.” He didn’t, but he was good friends with “Girl C” a woman he had met on Match who had become a good friend. “C” had dated “B” and they were also good friends. So “B” told “C” about me, who told “A”, who confronted me in the car. It was all so delicious I had to laugh – not only is Pittsburgh already a “small town with tall buildings” (Jay Speyerer’s expression) but the Pittsburgh Match community turns out to be rather close knit.

This did not surprise me. Many of my girlfriends on Match have met, emailed or dated men who have winked or emailed me. We compare notes – we ARE women and we talk! I was warned to avoid this one because he had a substance abuse problem, and that one was sweet but appeared to be battling some inner demons.

Sometimes I feel like I am back in High School, when we all knew each other and who was seeing who. I have avoided dating across state lines, figuring there must be enough eligible men right here in Pittsburgh and I didn’t have to drive to Wheeling or Columbus to meet someone. Only now am I seeing the possible appeal!

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