The short story "Liking Men," from Margaret Atwood's Simple Murders, begins:  "It's time to start liking men again.  Where shall we begin"?  Atwood finally concludes that the feet of the sleeping man presently in her bed are kinda cute and, all in all, acceptable.  She'll begin, then, by liking his feet.

There is nothing like online dating to make me read Atwood, all Atwood, and nothing but Atwood. The most rabidly feminist man-hating screed in the world is mother's milk to me after just one date with a guy I meet online.  Nothing will sink men in my estimation quicker.  Since I published my Online Dating Dictionary in my blog last year ( http://www.ls.net/node/448 ),some of my girlfriends have suspected that I have online dating horror stories which I've yet to spill.  They want to read about them.  They think they will be amusing.

So.  Here goes.

I highly recommend online dating for extreme masochists who are dissatisfied with lesser forms of torture, like the rack, the keel-haul and the iron maiden.  The greatest mystery surrounding online dating is why, in the face of the huge popularity of these sites, homosexuality is holding steady at 2-5% of the population.  Online dating can make you loathe and mistrust the opposite sex to the point where arthropods begin to look attractive.  Perhaps the sites match up enough gays and lesbians with brain-dead losers, pervs and wackos that they also give up on the same sex, causing statistical parity? 

I'm not saying online dating never works for anyone.  The founder of eharmony.com, for instance, is filthy stinking rich.  I'm saying my experiences with men-met-online qualified me for federal disaster relief.

There Was Ben.

I found Ben on match.com.  A handsome chiropractor, Ben chatted me up for a while, proclaiming me "the nicest woman he'd ever talked to."  He talked about driving to meet me but never, technically, pointed his vehicle in my general direction.  He said he wanted to take his time and date around, as he was very recently divorced.  I agreed with him that going on the rebound was unhealthy, and accepted this as the reason why he never seemed to show up in person.  A month later he sent me his wedding photos via email.

And Also Marty.

Marty was a policeman.  He commanded his own S.W.A.T. team, which could be a big plus if my ex ever resumed his old stalking habit.  I was really psyched about Marty, because he was both sweet and smart--both very rare qualities on. . .which dating site was this?. . .Yahoo! Singles, I think.  We spent untold hours chatting via Yahoo! Messenger while I looked at the imposing photo of him in the upper left hand chat box corner.  Sunglasses, huge forearms folded in front of him, curly black hair--a very compact, smokin' hot presence.  Like something out of the movies.  We planned our first date, at Shoney's.  When I arrived, Marty was bigger than the buffet.  He explained that the photo I had been drooling over every night for a month was taken in 1985.  Since that time he had put on about 200 pounds.  He explained that he did not post a photo taken within the past couple of decades because, quote, "I didn't want to put myself down."

I made the fatal mistake of having my children in the same restaurant at a different table because babysitting fell through.  My 13-year-old son kept looking over at Marty and choking on his food with laughter.  I think at one point he had cole slaw up his sinuses, but when I went over to him, he sipped his water, slapped his thigh repeatedly, and said, chortling through tears, "I'm okay!  I'm okay!  Go talk to the poor guy!"

And Frank.  Step Aside, Clark Gable.

Women who suppose that romance and chivalry are dead have never been out with Frank.  The man oozed charm from every pore.  I met him on a Christian dating site.  Can't remember the name of it.  Frank had two homes, one in the city and one in the mountains.  We lingered over a ridiculously expensive lunch for an hour and a half, during which Frank proved himself a superb conversationalist. Then we walked up and down main street and he stopped at Barr's Fiddle Shop, tuned up a guitar, and sang country love songs like "Remember When."  I thought, this dude needs a recording contract.  As we strolled through the rest of the downtown, he suddenly turned to me and took my hand.  He explained, in the sweetest male tone of voice I've ever heard, that he had narrowed the "candidate pool" for his second wife down to two women, me and a blonde whom he'd been to dinner with the night before, and "I'm sorry, you're great and all, but I think she's a little bit better." 

I Thought Ghengis Khan was Dead

. . .until I went out with Rick.  He also—take special note of this fact—advertised on a Christian dating site, plentyoffish.com.  Unlike with Benny, and Marty, and Frank, Rick and I actually made it to date number two.  I noticed, as I watched his hands on the restaurant table, that Rick had a strange habit of twitching his fingers.  He squirmed convulsively, picked up his coffee cup, put it down, and looked me right in the eye.  He confessed that he had had sex with 300 different women.

In the past year alone.

I looked at him and thought, this guy has venereal diseases that scientists don't even know about yet.  "Waitress!  Check please!"  Can you say plentyofsharks.com?

Not all of my dates generated from online sites have been this interesting.  I've described only the really freaky ones.  Most have been so boring that it was all I could do to remain conscious.  I cherish the memories of dates during which neither me nor the guy could think of a single thing to say.  Not a syllable.  We just stared at each other, helplessly, like mummies in a museum whose tongues have been dust for three millennia. 

Some dates never came off at all, not because the guys married other women like Benny, but because my idea of a first date and that of my "match" were somewhat incompatible.  Like the guy from North Carolina who wanted our first date to be at a weekend nudist retreat.  So now you gals (and guys) know what inspired me to write my Online Dating Dictionary.