I Had This Really Great Idea Today...

Since:

• I didn't like dating even when I was young and it was supposed to be fun; and
• I have a very full and busy life and no room to really add anything; and
• I've been separated from my husband for 5.5 years and haven't gotten around to getting divorced; and
• I'm thinking seriously about moving out of town in six months; and
• I'm really not all that interested in starting a relationship; and
• I think planned dating is artificial and doomed to fail; and
• I think online dating is creepy,
  

I decided to join an online dating service.

Since I...you know...don't want to date, I definitely didn't bring my marketing A-game to profile creation. In fact, I broke the cardinal rules of online dating by posting realistic pictures and telling the truth about my weight.

Have no fear, though. I got exactly what I deserved. On the first night, I received four messages. One of them had a strange emoticon in the subject line and nothing but "got curves??" in the body of the message. (How does one respond to that, even if one were so inclined?) Another said only "Sooooooooooo pretty!!" in the subject line and HAD no text in the body of the message. (How does one respond to that, even if one were so inclined?)

To top it off, it's apparently considered bad form not to respond when someone sends you a message, even if you're "not interested".

It's been approximately six hours, and I'm ready to bail, but I have learned some very interesting things:

• Although the average American man is 5'9.4", nearly all men on dating sites are 6' or taller;
• A surprising number of men have photographs of themselves with horses;
• The world would be a better place if the phrase "and take it from there" were stricken from the English language;
  
• Many, many innocent men have accidentally stumbled into the clutches of women who want to do unseemly things with them, and thus through no fault of their own had their messaging privileges restricted;
• Most men consider having coffee or a meal with someone with whom they lack chemistry a "waste of time" for both parties;
• Most men aren't even aware of what it says about them when they announce in a public forum that they think human interactions are only worthwhile if they're likely to lead to sex;
• A large percentage of men say they're different from other men for the same reasons; and
  
• Spelling is not a priority.

Any doubts I might have had about bypassing the whole dating scene and carrying on with my life as-is have been laid to rest, but I'm wondering whether I should hang around just for the sake of my art. There could be a whole new blog in this. Or, you know, a new career as a stand-up comedienne.