Online Dating: So Many Tools in the Internet Shed

By Erica von Rath

After learning her boyfriend lied about almost every aspect of his life, Erica thought she would give online dating a try. She thought it would be a great way to select men to date based on their honest profiles (heh) and to weed out the men who weren't serious. What she didn't realize was that a majority of the guys she encountered were not only undateable, she would have material for a blog and then this book.

Erica spent over two years wading in the Internet dating fish pond only to find...not what she was expecting. This award-winning book is based on her blog that details unromantic dates, silly messages and poor manners aplenty! Read true stories of her experiences, including outright recognition, and read her own profile and judge for yourself: Was online dating right for her? It's a sarcastic take on a personal jump into the waters. Required reading for those considering online dating.

So Many Tools in the Internet Shed received a GOLD Award from the Nonfiction Authors Association.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Erica von Rath
• Release date: Apr 30, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301131167

Erica von Rath

Erica von Rath is a Sacramento native who earned her degree in Mass Communication and Criminal Justice from California State University, Sacramento. She toured with Cirque du Soleil, worked inside a famous prison, helped regulate the death care industry, and most recently graduated from beauty school. She appeared on Win Ben Stein’s Money and Lingo with Chuck Woolery and was a victim on the hidden camera television show Foul Play. She’s also an advocate for two cancer-related charities in honor of her mother. She’s a licensed cosmetologist working on her next writing project. She doesn’t miss the smell of prison in the morning.

Book preview

Online Dating:

So Many Tools in the Internet Shed

By

Erica von Rath

www.ericavonrath.com

[e-mail]

Follow on Twitter @EricavonRath

www.facebook.com/ericavonrath

Copyright 2013 Erica von Rath

Published on Smashwords

Cover Design: Tamara Gordon

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All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Smashwords Edition License Notes

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Table of Contents

The Introduction

Plenty of Cyber Fish in the Big Cyber Sea

Single White Female

Ed Hardy?

WARNING! Fake Profiles

The Profile

The Art of Polite Conversation

The Age of Non-Innocence

The Age of Non-Innocence – Part Two

Young Man and the Sea (and Cat)

*Sigh*

The Art of Polite Conversation – Part Two

Is There Something in Your Eye?

Porn for Women

Bad Kats

iPadding

Nintendo

Beanstalk

Confabulation

Quantity. Not Quality.

Wheels

Cause for Pause

*Blush*

Goals. I Has Dem.

Surprise!

800+

Internet Friending

Desperation Stinks

No Joy to the World

Cherry

Greener Grass

Sociopath

Greyson

Juggling Act

Cricket Etiquette

Nerd Overload

Whale Poop

Breaking News

Special Ed

Lying Eyes

The Ex-Boyfriend

Comfortable

Bamboo Fan

MANNERS!

Civics Lesson

I Love Polar Bears

Political Gaffe

MANNERS! – Part Two

In the Weeds

Nate the Date and an Epiphany

Rude Dude Stalker

Greetings, Earthling

Good Grief

Back in the Saddle. Kind of.

Swinging Doors

Pudgy Attitude

Mean Things Come in Small Packages

A Double McDouche

A Date with Nature

The Death of Black Canary

About the Author

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The Introduction

At 36 going on 26, I’m the girl who literally ran away to join the circus, worked inside a prison and went to beauty college. This has nothing to do with the shenanigans I’ve seen in more than two years of online dating.

From guys who fly planes to guys who bathe in the river, I’ve dated them all. In the end, all I got out of it was a silly blog, material for this book, and an honorary degree in the study of testosterone-laden lunacy that you may find educational or funny, or perhaps a little bit of both.

This book isn’t for the squeamish, and since it’s all true, my dad has promised never to read it.

I think my mom would have loved it.

Erica

P.S. The names have been changed to protect the guilty and gross.

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Plenty of Cyber Fish in the Big Cyber Sea

If you’ve never had to dive into the world of online dating, be grateful. Be grateful every day you do not have to wade through the debris, seaweed, used condoms … all that crap you find on a beach and don’t really want to touch. I don’t want to touch most of the guys on these websites, especially the website I actually pay for. This says a lot of about my pool of candidates. If there were a creature or thing worse than a frog you’d have to kiss before you found your Prince Charming … that’s what I have to sort through on the Internet.

Times one million.

That’s not to say that there aren’t some really nice guys on the Internet. There are nice people, like me (arguably) … average-looking … not like me (heh) but not one I could ever see myself dating or ever being attracted to. This is what makes dating using the Internet tricky. You might find one of these nice guys at work or meet them through friends, and after spending a lot of time with them, become very attracted to them. But since one’s profile on the Internet rarely lets someone perusing through hundreds of them let one get to know their personality, you may never know. You really have to see these guys in action. (The same goes for the really good-looking guys, by the way, because though they might be handsome, they might also be rude to the server at a restaurant or make inappropriate comments about others’ weight while out and about…or the worst: make fun of homeless people.) But about half of the guys on these websites are non-annoying guys and fit this profile, so if I swore to give every nice guy a shot, I would be broke and exhausted. I don’t want to waste any time that could be spent on writing about all of this because writing is way more fun.

Non-annoying guys. I should explain. These include the nice guys and the guys who have plain profiles. Many times, they’re both. Plain is the polite way of saying incredibly boring. They love life. They are passionate about life, or they are just passionate, in general. These profiles don’t really offend or irritate me. They are just uninteresting. They just are, meaning, they exist, and I move right on past them. Frankly, they just wrote about what the online dating tutorials said to write about, such as how much they like to go hiking, which I find so interesting since most of the guys who contact me live in Sacramento, as in the city of Sacramento, a place not known for its overabundance of trails. (Tutorial websites actually say to write about how much you like to hike.) It’s probably more of a once-a-year hobby. And honestly, I’m not really sure everyone actually does all the hobbies they list in their profile all the time. I know I don’t. I had a lunch date recently with someone who asked me what my hobbies were, and I said something like, You know, I do a lot of things, I swear, but it’s so hard to actually come up with a list at this moment. He laughed, and agreed. (Well, he agreed to my face.) Truthfully, if my eye isn’t caught by a dating profile within the first few lines, I’m moving on.

With regard to boring profiles, not that I want a jerk, but a hint of sarcasm is really welcome, a sign of a personality … something. They talk about how much they love their kids and how their kids are the priority (as they should be). They might wink at me or actually write me a very nice email. They’re not particularly funny but they compliment my pictures and ask politely what I do for a living or how my day is going. Sadly, there’s neither a personality in what they write in their message to me nor in their profile, and I feel like I’m conversing with a robot. Nothing that makes me want to jump their bones, anyway.

Now, the opposite: The annoying guys. Included in this group are the assholes, smart asses and douche bags. Truly. I didn’t realize there were so many and how mean they could be, even occasionally hurting the feelings of this heartless female. (This demographic only really makes up about 25 percent of the Internet fish pond, yet one quarter is a big chunk of tuna.) They send me nasty messages for no good reason, and their profiles are riddled with typos. I dwell on the typos because this is annoying to someone who takes pride in the things she writes, especially about herself. It’s an instant turn off because it means they didn’t put enough thought into finding someone they could ask to proofread what they wrote. My sixth grammar sense becomes frustrated, and then I start mentally marking the screen with a red Sharpie. I’ve read several profiles that don’t even contain a period. Not a single one.

(Before folks start criticizing my choice of verb tense and comma overload, I realize I’m not perfect when it comes to grammar and punctuation. However, I can put a proper sentence together.)

The last quarter of the group (and I’m thinking I should even shrink it down more) are the guys whom I would actually consider dating. Those would be guys who don’t smoke, who make a respectable amount of money, who don’t talk about how much they like to go to the gym or go tanning, who don’t post pictures of their eight pit bulls and/or tattoos and/or motorcycles, who are local, and who are preferably without kids (because of ex-girlfriends and/or ex-wives).

I’m going to expand a bit. This is normal.

Guys with kids sometimes like to post pictures of their kids. I’m usually against this. I don’t think you should be using your small child to get a date; there is just something inherently creepy about putting your kids on a dating website without them knowing. I especially avoid the guys who state they have children, but they live away from home, and many of these guys write in their profile they definitely want more. To me, it sounds like they’re hanging their other kids out to dry, and I would never be alright with my future husband’s other children not living nearby.

(I’m aware there are extenuating circumstances on occasion, but based on the profiles I read, I believe this to not be the norm.)

Is it too much to ask to want to date a guy who doesn’t smoke?

The gym rats. These guys have to say they go to the gym so they believe it. I picture them every morning, speaking into their dirty mirrors and then flexing like a naked Terminator in the shower. If they have muscles, and they’re clearly displayed in their pictures, it’s pretty much a given they frequent the gym. The guys who are adamant they go 10 times a week also have to post a picture of them at the gym while posing in the mirror using their smart phone to take a full-length picture of their body in the reflection. I don’t really want a guy who spends that much time at the gym. Working out is great and all, but I’d rather date a guy who reads and is current on world events and shows it in his profile and not someone who feels the need to brag about gym time, and not someone who goes to the gym to take glamour shots. That’s what their bathroom mirrors are for.

Tanning as a hobby should really be grouped with the gym obsession. Anyone who actually lists tanning as a hobby is probably overdone from said tanning. I guess that’s what couples do together nowadays. I’d rather try sushi for the first time than go on a tanning date.

(I have an aversion to seafood. I’ve never tried sushi.)

I’m not a fan of tattoos, either. I’m talking about the thick ink of a tribal nature. From that one tribe many males who online date allegedly belong to in Sacramento. A few here or there is fine. Also not a fan of the ones that look like the guy was tagged by a gang of Crips between the shoulder blades. And tattoos do not improve with age. I can’t picture my future mate and me at the retirement home, trying to explain what his sleeve used to be to the other residents. (But then if everyone has them, guessing what they used to be could turn into a really fun game after naptime.)

Transportation: Pictures of motorcycles, boats or cars don’t impress me. I don’t care, and I’m surprised and embarrassed as a woman to think that so many other women really