My Whim is Law

(I had some clever and/or cutesy titles for this post when I was writing it in my head over the last week or so – except none of them worked. So I’m going for the ‘clear and straightforward, if overly verbose’ angle…let’s see how this works instead.)

As careful readers of both this blog and betsywhim.com have discerned, well – I’ve been attempting to get out and meet people. Including potential dating partners – whether via services like Match.com or OKCupid, in person at various events or places around town, or (gasp) other online services.

How’s that been working for me, you wonder? As with anything else, it’s a mix: some good, some not so good. But compared to the last time I was out dating, well – there are a few new wrinkles to take into account, a few more variables to be aware of.

(No, not the teens – they’re definitely not a factor here, as they’ve made it abundantly clear that they just Don’t Want To Know Anything, in a ‘rolled eyeballs &/or dismissive sniff’ kind of way – and that’s fine with me.)

See, last time I was fairly undercover about it, and my (ahem) digital presence wasn’t nearly as ubiquitous, cough cough. So you couldn’t do a Google search to find much dirt, even after you finally found out only my first name (last name shared only after a positive in-person meeting, don’tchaknow) after eons of email exchanges via a throwaway semi-anonymous email address. This time? Either I’m lazy, jaded, or just indifferent to potential privacy violations/wacky internet stalker types – or better at spotting the crazies & cutting them off at the pass.

I’d also like to think that what you see – whether in my internet dating profile, or over email/phone/in person conversations – is what you’re going to get. So my pictures are recent (crappy, but up-to-date), and I don’t do the shy and/or mysterious thing, either. I also don’t censor myself much on other online services – Twitter being the chief example.

(Disclaimer: Has it been suggested to me that perhaps I am not doing all that I can do to, ahem, burnish my online reputation as of late? Yes, it has – and the suggestions have much merit to them. Working on that now – not in a polishing the rotten apple kind of way, but more in a ‘oh, yeah – not a true reflection of who I truly am, so cut the crap out already’ awareness. And to the friend who called me on my shit? Thank you…)

So I was stunned and more than a little hurt when my planned date emailed me last weekend (after a few weeks of casual email conversations covering a variety of subjects) canceling our coffee meeting. His reason? The fact that I used Twitter – along with his fear that he would be not only the subject, but an object of future tweets.

(Did he react based on actual conversations I’d been having recently? Well, I went through several days’ worth of my tweet stream, but couldn’t see anything obviously incriminating. But honestly? I guess I can’t be sure. I was also pretty sure we’d not be a good fit for other reasons – but figured I’d at least give him a chance to demonstrate in person what he was about. I mean, we were just talking coffee in a public place for an hour or so, after all.)

The reaction I got from the few people I shared this with was fairly universal, and went something like this: “better to find that out now…next?” But I confess that it had me rethinking my whole open, transparent, WYSIWYG approach. Or perhaps leaving Twitter out of it for the first few dates. (The guy I’m seeing tonight? It hasn’t even come up in conversation to date – although it’s certainly referenced in my profile and is easy enough to track down once we started emailing each other…)

At the end of the day, though?

Fuck it.

Yes, I swear. I’m raising children who are probably way too snarky, I enjoy a glass of bourbon from time to time, and I’m a flawed, vulnerable individual – you’ll get all of that from following my twitter stream.

But if you’re paying attention, you’ll also see that I’m genuine. I’m consistent – from my online profile to our email communications to yes, the snarky 140c Twitter asides. I’m able to carry on a conversation, ask insightful questions, engage with people, or give back.

And if you’re not going to date me because I use Twitter? Well, that’s your loss, I guess.

Or is it?