Blog about a blog about a conversation about online dating

Have you ever had a video camera or a Web cam that you held up to the screen? It often makes a tunnel of slightly smaller screens inside screens... it winds off to infinity and the effect is pretty cool.

Relationships (in a general sense... people interacting and storing and processing and building upon those interactions; not just "significant other"-type relationship) are sort of like that. We often react not to the person that we have a relationship, but based on how we imagine they see us.

Maybe it's just me, and maybe I'm very egocentric or shallow, but I think it's exceedingly hard to know someone and how they are going to react with any certainty, so really all we can go by is how they've acted in the past and/or how we would act.

Anyway. If anyone wants to argue with me about that perspective, let me know. In the meantime, I have a blog to write.

This blog is slightly special, because it's a blog about a blog. A blog someone else wrote about a conversation with me.

I write a ton of blogs about conversations with people I know or barely know or don't know at all. I try to be pretty accurate with what they say, but I can usually only guess as to what they think. I'm sure I've distorted or misheard or misrepresented plenty of people on this blog, but it's for the greater good, right?

The greater good of making myself feel better and/or making readers laugh so they'll make me feel better.

Some background: I used to be pretty active on online dating. Match.com,Yahoo Personals, PlentyofFish.com, OKCupid.com, and the Stranger's Lovelab. (No, those links are NOT to my profiles, which may or may not be active...) I didn't know a lot of people--let alone girls--and I felt it was a good way to meet women. It actually was, but I don't have the patience to inexplicably get shot down by thirty girls for every one that responded.

I actually had the most success with women who contacted me first. These "unsoliciteds" were not commonly my cup of tea, but when they contacted me first and I found them cool and attractive? Good times, indeed. I haven't really checked my profiles regularly for over a year, and haven't gone on a date from one of the services since... hm... January 4, 2008.

But that's another blog.

In any event, I was poking around on the Web today. I got a promotional code for free Google AdWords advertising, so I was setting it up for my blog, and I was searching different keywords to see what showed up.

With "Seattle dating blog", I saw a link to the Seattle PI, and from there to a blog about Seattle dating. It was dated April 25, 2008. And it was written by a woman that looked vaguely familiar. So I read it and started to smile. It went something like this:

At a bar in my neighborhood last night, some guy kept catching my eye and eventually ended up standing next to me in the cramped, crowded popularity of Thursday night Ladies Night. It wasn't long before he made his move...

"Do I know you from somewhere?" he asked.

In a brief second, I studied his eyes and features for any ounce of recognition. Nope. I shook my head and turned back around to the attention of SMT and the inebriated crowd, swaying and jittering on the dance floor.

"Yes I do! The Stranger online...like a year ago...and you were at [insert another neighborhood bar here] last week!" he exclaimed.

Uh.

Yes and yes. Weird.

First of all: yes, I was the person that had that conversation with her.

Secondly: I wasn't "making my move". I was gonna ask her how Lovelab turned out for her, and if she didn't remember me I was looking forward to making her a bit uncomfortable. Because that's what I do.

I remember things and I make people uncomfortable.

For the record: she messaged me first. Also for the record, I think I replied semi-drunkenly and very suggestively and never heard back from her.

It makes me wonder what other blogs I'm anonymously playing the creepy dude in. Probably none, right?

Right?