Online Dating: A Weighty Decision

I bet this happens to you: something is sort of bothering you, only you don’t think it really bothers you that much, so you just go on about living your life and you try to forget about it. Until you realize that maybe it is actually bothering you more than you thought, and so you have to actually revisit the issue and work through it so that you can move on from it. Well, this has happened to me from something that occurred over the weekend—something that got me down and messed with my mojo.

June Cleaver is probably not going to win
that twerking contest!

I know I have mentioned before that around the beginning of August I somehow, inexplicably, became an optimist. I still don’t know exactly what prompted this change, as before it occurred I was about as optimistic as June Cleaver at a twerking contest. But, somehow this great change occurred. And, guess what?! I actually feel much better and am much happier than I have ever been! So, it is understandable, I guess, that I worry that this optimism will somehow wear off or otherwise fade away. If I ever feel a little bit down, or if I start to dwell on something negative, I become hyper vigilant about not slipping into a negative way of thinking. Well, over this past weekend I felt a little blue, and it has lasted up until this very moment.

I have figured out what caused me to feel this way and, what do you know? It is related to online dating. I suppose feeling depressed about online dating is no big revelation. After perusing an online dating site last week, and seeing some of the guys out there, I guess depression is a rational response. However, I know enough people who have had successful online dating experiences, that I believe there are some good ones amidst the sea of men who don’t wear shirts in their profile pictures, so, on Sunday, I actually wrote out my online dating profile in Microsoft Word. Perhaps I will share it with you one day, because I think you would find it pretty entertaining, but I will wait until I have actually posted it on a dating site to share it here.

Posting my profile was a big step, but I was going into it with a good attitude, and thinking that even if I don’t meet anyone spectacular, I willd still probably have fun, and I will certainly have some good stories to tell. I decided against the site I looked into last week, OK Cupid, and instead opted for another free online dating site called Plenty of Fish. My older brother and his wife met on that site, and they seem like a wonderful match, so I thought, “What have I got to lose?”

Well, apparently the answer to that question is a few pounds, but I’ll get to that in a minute. After laboring over my dating profile so that I didn’t sound insane, or needy, or overly self-involved, or any of the other terrible things you try not to sound in your online dating profile, I was ready to take the leap and actually put it up on the Internet for all to see. Before I could post the profile, I had to post some preliminary information. You know, like my birthdate, whether or not I was a smoker, my height, and other things that help online daters weed out inappropriate matches. All was going well until I got to the little box that said “body type.”

I figured I was all set on this box, because I would just put “curvy.” In my mind, curvy could describe my figure without sounding negative. I have lost a lot of weight, and I am not exactly really overweight, but I still weigh a little too much to be considered average, but I don’t think I am at such a high weight that I seem that much bigger than average. So, curvy it was!

But, when I looked at the choices for body type, I found, to my dismay, that curvy wasn’t one of them. The choices were:

• Prefer Not to Say
• Thin
• Athletic
• Average
• A Few Extra Pounds
• Big & Tall/BBW

Now, I can see some problems with some of these choices right off the bat! First, if you put “Prefer Not to Say,” forget it! I am pretty sure that evasiveness on this question is not the way to go. If I looked at a guy’s profile and it said, “Prefer Not to Say” for body type, I would probably assume that was code for something terrible that he did not want to share, and then I would probably not respond to him. Plus, what I would imagine in my mind would likely be much worse than how things were in real life. "Thin", "Athletic", or "Average", would be great, but I don’t quite fit into any of those categories. I’m not thin, I am athletic only in the sense that my fingers get a good workout when I knit, and I think I am a little bit outside the average category, though, in a couple of months, I will probably fit right into that category. I know I don’t fit into the category of “Big & Tall/BBW” because, first, what does BBW mean? And, second, I’m not really extra-big or extra-tall.

In all honesty, I probably fit into the category of “A Few Extra Pounds,” but, really? Really, is there anyone who is going to want to put “A Few Extra Pounds” as their body type on their dating profile?! I mean, come on, Plenty of Fish, at least come up with a nicer way to say it! That is why I like the designation “curvy,” because it communicates that I am a work in progress, while not making me feel terrible. I considered just putting "Average," because, it won’t be too long before I will be average, but then I decided that this would be false advertising, and that my potential dates might be disappointed after they met me and saw that I don’t quite belong in the average category.

So, I could put “A Few Extra Pounds,” and then I would be being truthful, but that would limit who would respond to my profile. Now, I know that, ideally, a guy wouldn’t care about my body type, and he would just like me for me. But, let’s be honest here. Meeting someone online is not like meeting someone in real life. If I meet a guy in real life, and he carries a few extra pounds, but he is an awesome guy, then I am probably not going to care about the extra pounds, because I will know he is an awesome guy. But, when I am looking for a date online, and I do not know any of the guys one bit, why not try to get one that seems like a nice person, and who is also very attractive? I do not mean that people who weigh a little more than they would like cannot be attractive, but, if I am given two dating profiles, in which the guys both have attractive faces, and they both seem like passable normal intelligent people, but one has chosen “Average,” and one has chosen, “A Few Extra Pounds,” then I might be more likely to choose the average one.

The dreaded body type selector on Plenty of Fish!

Or, now that I consider it, I might just go ahead and go on a date with both and see which one I liked better. See how talking out your feelings helps? I am working through this issue already! But, even though I know that whole “A Few Extra Pounds” thing would not be a deal breaker for me, I still cannot bring myself to use that descriptor in my own dating profile. I mean, it just makes me feel unattractive! Plus, I did hang out with a guy a couple of months ago when I weighed slightly more than I do now, and he did not seem put off by my body type, so maybe I should just put average. It is a quandary! Right now I am leaning toward waiting until I have lost about 20 more pounds before signing up so I can, in good conscience, put “Average,” but I feel like that is not quite what I want to do either.

I guess this is something I will work out in my mind over time, but right now I am going to take my indecisiveness as a sign to hold off on the online dating for a little while!

June Cleaver image courtesy of http://blog.mollymaid.com/

Body type selector image courtesy of http://www.plentyoffish.com