Self Reflection.

So I was sitting around the co-op deciding what the next upgrades were going to be. It feels like I've been working on this place forever, and the progress seems rather minimal. There were so many small things that needed to get done and now I need to start tackling larger projects. Being a master of avoiding things that I don't want to do, I decided I'd hit the internet. 

Wow, I realized I had not been on dating sites in a real long time. I type in some of the more well known ones like cupid.com and begin doing a search. I check Females, Single, 29 – 41, within 20 miles of where I live, “Search”.

First entry; Sunshine Eyes 18 Brooklyn, Loves to laugh, adventurous, loves to try new things, mister right where are you?”.

First, in what universe does 29 -41 years old mean 18? Second what fold in time and space puts Brooklyn within 20 miles of where I live? Third, I sorted in distance order, how is Brooklyn closer than Red Bank? Well, I got 27 cupid emails and 4 winks. Amazing considering I had none when I first logged on after an insane amount of months and by some psychic dating presence, they all decided to contact me the exact same day and want me to text them back.
Of course texting costs money, do I smell scam? Then to make matters worse I decided to see if they have any speed dating events. That's how I found this site in the first place, over a year ago. Let's see, they do mention speed dating. It's an article saying how speed dating doesn't work. My guess is it probably wasn't profitable enough, so they axed it and now are bashing it.

On to Okcupid.com. Names are close, but this one seemed more interesting when I started signing up for it last year and was referred by a friend. The problem is after hours of answering hypothetical partner what if's, I fell asleep at the keyboard and decided this site was way too much of a hassle. So now I skip all of the questions and start looking on the site. I get an email and think, great, here we go again. Wait, the email is from a staff member. They are telling me that if I submit a picture, I'll be included on more searches.

Awesome, except for one thing. I'm never in front of the camera. Out of the tens of thousands or so photos on my network drives, I'm not in any of them. The only photos I have of myself are me in Halloween costumes or me when I was like seventeen years old. Of course I do have the ones I took for the blog and the one that is on cupid.com, but in those I look like I'm stunned to see a camera or a speed baller coming down off a bad high.

I'm not saying I'm the greatest looking guy in the world, but in pictures, especially self portraits, I look a little more like Joseph Merrick (Ben Affleck's twin brother.) then I'd like to.

I quickly grab my dslr and realize, that without setting up the tripod, it is not the right tool for the job. I try a few shots anyway and realize, I do not have any lenses, that at arms length will look good. No problem I have my Iphone. Taking a picture with an Iphone in anything but OPTIMAL light looks like ass (Steve Jobs face),unless you photoshop the crap out of it. Saying pictures from an Iphone are hip or artsy or cool, does not make you hip, or artsy or cool; It makes you a douche bag. It is equivalent to saying it would be artsy to scribe your bands latest diatribe of unfortunately failed suicide on a wax cylinder.

So now I remember, that while I was replacing (even though I never got rid of any of) my camera equipment, I bought a Samsung dual lcd digital camera. It's the type that has an lcd screen in front for self portraits. Great, now all I have to do is find it. I keep all of my camera equipment in cases in the closet, so how hard could it be? Let's just say, tomorrow's blog will be on just such a topic.

I take a few shots, upload them to the laptop.  Damn, I didn't shave and am wearing my old glasses The glasses are so dirty. I have like 8 pairs of glasses (Strangely, I'm nearsighted but my prescription hasn't changed since I was 15). Problem is that I leave them all over and whichever pair I find first, I wear.

So I get done taking the pictures, upload them and now I'm ready, at least I thought I was. I now have to fill out more essays then any communication major could tackle. Whew, I'm almost done. If I send someone a message, my profile will be 50% complete, time to find a match. I check Females, Single, 29 – 41, within 20 miles of where I live, “Search”.

First entry Green Eyes, 37, NYC, NY.. Wow dating geography sure is strange. 4 pages later and hey, there is a woman within 10 miles of where I live. She has no profile information and has not been on the site since August of 2010, but hey, maybe I should send her a message. 6 more pages later,

wow a real candidate. Lives close, seems intelligent, wow I think I'll message her. Wait, what's this, answer 10 questions on compatibility? OK 10 questions answered, I'm going to send her a text. Wait, take the tests that they took and compare results. Sure.

Well, now I've spent as much time as I'm going to on this site. I haven't found a date, but according to the tests, I'm an OrangutangCat, a centrist who is financially conservative and I'm the life and soul of the party.