The Spark: Goal #3

Readers, I did something I told myself I would never do.. and I’m very ashamed to have to admit this to you.






I signed up on Match.com.




I know, pathetic right?

So, in celebration of singles awareness.... I mean Valentines month, I decided to write a tribute to my most awkward love experiences.



Let me preface with this; as women, and I think I can speak for most women, when I say that when we meet a guy for the first time ... whether this is a friend, a co worker, that guy who jogs by your house every morning, we choose one of the following options on this mental list that is instinct to our being.... guys I’m dolling out vital information so pay attention....

1) No way
2) Wear that shorter skirt next time I see him
3) It wouldn’t be ideal, but it could work
4) Our first daughter will be named Charlotte.

Or, if you're me...

5) I'm going to get into trouble.

So, with this idea rolling around in my head that it would be possible to sift through some pictures of cute guys, all at my selection, weeding out the “no ways”, and cutting straight to the short skirt, I figured “who’s to say this internet thing doesn’t work?” We’re women, and we believe in the theory of the “Spark”. The instant feeling of connection or no connection upon first sight.
But, is this true? Is finding love that simple, and can we do it on the internet? We’re young, and we’re all on this quest of either finding ourselves or finding love, and usually we just end up flat on our ass either way. So, since I’ve obviously spent a lot of time falling on my ass trying to find the “meaning of love”, I’ve decided to consult the professionals.... this is love according to the rest of the world.

According to Frank Sinatra (The author of love, obviously): “Love is a many splendored thing”

According to Harry, from “When Harry met Sally” : “When you know you want to spend the rest of your life with someone, you want the rest of your life to begin as soon as possible”

According to Mandy Moore in “A Walk To Remember “Love is like the wind, you can’t see it, but you can feel it”

According to Drew Barrymore in Ever After “A life without love is no life at all”

According to Mouline Rouge “Love is like oxygen”

According to Disney’s Bambi “Love is a song that never ends” (thank you Disney for clearing that up for us)

According to Les Miserables “To love another person is to see the face of God” .... mmmm strong words

According to “Angels in the Outfield “Love is that can’t eat, can’t sleep, reach for the stars, outta the park world series kinda stuff”

According to the bible: “Love is patient, and love is kind...” we all know the rest


According to Pat Benatar “Love is a battlefield”

According to Wesley of The Princess Bride even “Death cannot stop true love, it can only delay it a little while” (why can’t we all have a Wesley?)

According to the Beatles “All you need is love”

and according Jay Geils of the J.Geils band ..... “Love stinks”.

What I’m feeling through all of these differing opinions is that basically: love can make or break you, and once you’re broken there ain’t no fixing you.

To be completely honest, despite the fact that I thought it could be a fun, personal bachelorette game; I didn’t really want to go through the painful process of meeting new people, forcing conversation, and risking awkward moments, and being potentially broken..... again. But, here’s my problem; I seldom date, when I do fall for someone it’s usually my best friend, and it usually ends in tears, a tub of chocolate ice cream, depressing music playlists, and a razor blade. So, since I am on this new mission to face myself with new challenges I figured this would be an interesting challenge to force myself into. That, or a new hate-playlist. My goal was to date.

So I set out on this quest of “The Spark”.

What I learned quickly about match.com is that A) it is mostly populated by desperate nerds with no social skills,
B) the greek god looking guys don’t respond, or are a false profile,
C) the greek god looking guys that do respond come with a catch,
D) on match.com you “wink” instead of facebook “poke” and this is how 90% of communication happens.
Within the first week I was unfortunately disappointed with my selection of forty-five year old men winking at me, and emails with pick up lines such as “You’re hot, I have long fingers” or “Hey baby I wanna c u wit ur shirt off”

*pause* First of all... guys... if you can’t spell out the full word in texts or emails because either A) you are lazy, or B) you really don’t know how to spell ..... Do not approach a woman. Thank you.

Never the less, there were the few troopers who pulled through successfully on communication, age, and looks. Here’s how the winners pulled through...

Contestant number one: We’ll call him Stan

The text communication went as following:

Stan: “Hey want to hang out tonight”
Bachelorette (that’s me): “Sure, I’m getting dinner with a girl friend, then I’ll text you”
Stan: “Sounds great”

*two hours later*

Bachelorette: “Hey, I just finished dinner, what did you have in mind tonight”
Stan: “I don’t care”

.........

Bachelorette: “Well, did you want to hang out somewhere?”
Stan: “Whatevverrrrrrr”

-_- <---- this was the look on my face.

......

Bachelorette does not respond. *four hours later*

Stan: “Hey what are you doing?”.

You get the point. After that, Stan did decide to get together, but could not figure out the directions I had given him to the location I had finally taken the initiative to map out, and decided to rendezvous at. Life is too short.

Contestant number two. We’ll call him Dudley.

Long story short, Dudley is quite young, dudley is barely twenty one. Dudley is from Northern California, and does not quite have an understanding of living in Southern California. Dudley is very sweet.... a little too sweet for the dark princess of the underworld if you catch my breeze. To this day Dudley still sends the Bachelorette text messages that she does not respond to. This has been going on for several months. Oh Dudley.

What is love? Is the spark really real? Does it really happen like it does in the movies? Are there happy endings? Universal questions we can all relate to. As we’ve learned there are many, many different ideas on what love is, and to quote one of my very favorite movies “He’s just not that into you”: “The spark is a myth! It’s this thing that guys make up and you women! You just eat it up!” ... I think I have to agree, on some level. Are we really going to meet mr. right (or miss right) in this instant moment of locking eyes and realizing happily ever after is right around the corner? Sometimes, but do we base love on that alone? Are we going to find true love through years of waiting, and searching, and suddenly understanding one day that your best friend right by your side is the one you want to spend the rest of your life with? Sometimes. Is love slow to learn, through a process of spending time with each other, dating the “it wouldn’t be ideals” and thinking “eh you’re alright”, and then one day realizing you can’t live without that person? Sometimes.
I say 'sometimes' not because I have experienced all of this. Like I said, I’m the girl that only falls for the best friend, and I limit myself to that, but I have seen all of this happen.

I think love is what we make it.

Love is our story. It can’t happen to anyone else... because it’s OUR story.


I began this journey on match.com also thinking “I’ll meet the man of my dreams, and this will be a great blog entry” The title was going to be “Finding true love ...goal # ...”. Well, obviously this is not how it played out. To be quite honest.... I’m glad it didn’t.
Who am I to force my love story to unfold when it’s not ready yet? I’ve discovered several things about myself.... first, I’m not ready to date.
Second, I don’t think I am a casual dater...this is going to be apart of my story.
Third, I might be unapproachable.
It was a good experience, I did something I didn’t ever expect myself to do, *props*, but I won’t be doing it again. Until my love story unfolds I think I will continue to believe that somewhere amidst the sea of toads there is a prince crafted just for me. Maybe I will in fact lock eyes with him one day and, despite my disbelief, find love at first sight. Maybe I will actually end up with my best friend, or maybe I will settle with dating someone only to find out I actually can’t live without them... or maybe it will be nothing like any of that. I don’t know. But, I am excited to find out, to keep living, and learning, and exploring possibilities of my future love story. It’s all I can do, because if I’ve learned anything from other couples I know who have actually survived love... Love takes patience.

Love,
Pepper


"You know that place between sleep and awake? the place where you can still remember dreaming? That's where I'll always love you, Peter Pan. That's where I'll be waiting.” -Tinkerbell