Double Blind Experiments in Dating

I have numerous answers to that question, and I will lay them out for you below. Behold:

1. I’m honestly not looking for romance right now. I don’t need to find myself or reinvent myself. I’d love to find someone special, but I don’t think dropping all standards and opening myself to any possibility is the path that’s right for me. Not that’s it isn’t right for someone else! I just don’t think it’s right for me.
2. I envision a She’s All That scenario whereby I spend some time with a subject, and then I get to like him and he finds out that the entire pretext for our courtship is an ulterior motive. BAM! he hates me and I’m devastated by my own inconsiderate doings. Which leads me to…
3. I want to keep a clear distinction between what’s experimental and what’s real. I’m not looking to lead anyone on or take advantage of someone by humoring my readers at their expense. I want to tell fun stories about my fun (or crazy? we’ll see…) dates.

That said, I’m knee-deep in finding prospects for this social experiment, and I actually like a lot of them! These are normal guys who are putting themselves out there, and it’s really fun getting to know them. Yes, I’ve already met a few creepers (like the guy who thought it was appropriate to share with me that he’s heard he’s “amazing in bed” in our FIRST correspondence), but I’m pleasantly surprised how wrong some of my first impressions are about people.

Before I started this project, I had tried online dating for one full month, and I abandoned it because I hated it. I’ve historically only dated guys who were really good friends, and I didn’t feel I could go out with someone and get to know them if I had met them under the supposition that eventually our time together would lead to something more serious. I was very picky about who I would talk to, and with my ridiculously high standards I found a great deal of disappointment. Now that this is just for fun, I’m finding those standards were major road blocks, and these dating sites can actually work for some people.

Prime example: One of the first subjects who approached me was, at first glance, NOT for me. I remember telling my roommate he looks like a child molester, and she told me that I cannot go out with him because she doesn’t want to find my broken body shoved in a dumpster. I’ve been talking with him, and he’s actually a really fun, energetic and kind person! Now, there’s still a chance he’s a creeper (there’s a chance ANYONE’s a creeper, including that friend your coworker set you up with that one time), but in the short while that I’ve been experimenting with online dating, I’ve learned that you really can’t write someone off based on their profile pictures – ESPECIALLY with guys because, let’s face it, guys are pretty awful at picking good profile pictures.

At the end of the day, the way I see it is that if I never embarked on this project, I’d likely still find someone eventually anyway, right? So no need to rely on my whimsical desires to find a life-partner boyfriend. And this way I’m not setting up myself or someone else for a potentially harmful situation.

So what if I do find someone I really want to see second time? We’ll cross that bridge when/ if we get there.