my idea of romance includes: love notes inserted in my nostrils, bottles of vodka for no reason, a walk in the local dump

Loserlife. Just about everyone who has entered its hallowed electronic halls ends up calling it that, for a reason. Because it sucks, it's full of losers, and it makes you feel like a loser.

People post ancient pictures of themselves when they were young and hot. Everyone is looking for the same damn thing (men want women who are "as comfortable in an evening dress and heels as they are in jeans", women want men who will be their best friend and make them laugh all the time). Whatever.

Why have I ever used it then? Both times have been basically scientific, like putting a sliced grape in a microwave and watching for sparks.

The first time was a mere month after I split up with my masterfully deceitful ex, and I was feeling so bleak, pathetic, and alone, I just needed to know that there were lovely decent men in their 30's who were single. Though I posted in the "relationship" section, I was nowhere near ready for a real relationship -- but presumably that's where the men would be that I needed to know existed. That was my only lie. I.e. nowhere near the apparent average of 10-15 whoppers per profile, it's a wonder mine wasn't turned back at the gate.

I met a fellow online who seemed interesting and clever, and just as we were arranging to meet, he announced that he'd recently gotten back together with his ex-girlfriend. I spotted him in a grocery store six months later and he had a wedding ring on his finger, and he was ugly -- really quite unpleasant. Where did he get the pictures he'd posted that made him look so hunky? What trick, what flicker of the light?

In that same first period, I met another fellow online who seemed handsome, smart, interesting. We kept to first names only and met at a local pub. In person, he was homely, dim-witted, and dull. I could tell that I terrified him. I went home and deleted my profile completely, disgusted with the whole system.

A good friend of mine thinks I am too pragmatic when it comes to relationships. I said "it comes with the slightly anxious personality type" (with which I am blessed/cursed) - I can fixate on the future a little too much, and work too hard, in a completely absurd way, to guarantee positive outcomes. As though it were true that if I just planned everything well enough, life will turn out great. It's slowly sinking in, as is obvious to everyone else, that this is just not how life works. It may be why I am a kick-ass project manager though.

The thing is, I'm secretly a raging romantic, but so ragingly romantic that I think I could auto-combust if I gave into it. A girl in this world learns very young that being romantic gets her nowhere. It just means that it hurts more when you're the girl no one wants to kiss at a spin-the-bottle party, hurts more when you don't get asked to dance in some stinking gym with some damn disco ball twirling about. It means that all your life, you're perceived as too intense, too sensitive, too dreamy, too girlie, too goofy. It leaves your jugular exposed in too many situations. If I let myself be as romantic as I naturally might be, I would have to be institutionalized. (As it is, just enough squeaks through that, for example, I wept like a child at the end of The Office Special, but I won't ruin it for everyone else.)

I recently (like, five days ago) posted a profile on Loserlife again, because I got hung up on this notion that I needed to date a bunch of different men -- because I didn't date much before getting together with my ex, and I have suspected (in trying to figure out how I missed detecting what a fuck-up he was earlier) that if I'd just been exposed to more men (and I don't mean flashed in the park), I wouldn't have chosen him, wouldn't have made that mistake, wouldn't have been so burned, wouldn't have been sucker-punched by my inner romantic.

Met the first person yesterday through the Loserlife service -- not a date exactly, just meeting someone for a cup of tea. Again, he was nothing like his pictures, about 25 lbs heavier, and, though artfully concealed in said photos, had a mouth like large mammalian genital labia -- I AM NOT KIDDING. I couldn't even look at the lower half of his face when he talked. It lasted one hour before we both beat a hasty retreat. By the time I got home he'd blocked me from viewing his photos.

Talked to my sister last night (who makes up exactly half of what she writes on her blog, which is possibly reason to enjoy it all the more) about this (and some other more important things that were troubling me deeply), and she yelled at me, "Get off Loserlife. Now. It's depressing and stupid. Then move to the Yukon and live with me." I don't feel like moving to the Yukon just yet, but she's right about the other stuff. Even without her advice, I would have gone ahead and deleted my feeble second-attempt profile last night (as I did).

Sure, there's the odd success story, but in general, Loserlife, for me anyway, has been completely surreal, none of it grounded, none of it real -- because it's NOT real, and not just because I have poorly-thought-through motivations for playing with it. It's the whole set-up. Everyone is a little embarrassed to be doing it, nobody wants to end up accidentally dealing with a psycho, nobody wants to expose their true emotional state -- and the ones who do seem creepy. (e.g. "nobody responded to my last one but I guess I'm just not hot enough heheh. i'm looking for a girl who will make me melt in her arms and who is understanding and will love me for who I am. I can be moody, but usually i love to laugh and want to become one with someone. I am ready for that special girl. are you her?")

Even though it's probably obvious to everyone else, I am again concluding that the way to cure my trashed heart and feel normal again is not to run through these absurd and clinical experiments, but to let time and patience (the latter of which I have always been short on) do their magical thing, and it probably means a lot more time alone with my banjo.