Don't Trust The Internet

Back in college I used to be pretty desperate for dates. Growing up in a sheltered environment, I had been cloistered away in my house and thought a good Friday involved watching the latest Blockbuster release with my mother and siblings . . . and this was still senior year of high school. So, when I moved out for college I finally started to experience freedom. The only problem was, I was extremely socially akward.

I did not know how to talk to girls. I could joke around with them, but that always ended up with me entering the "friend zone" of which there is no escaping. Trust me, I tried once and got shot down pretty quickly. Anyway, this was around 1997. The internet was starting to become more and more prevalent, and the internet personal ads is what I made a beeline to in search of dates. Yeah, what a fucking nerd. I know.

You have to understand, this was before Match.com or that fancy schmancy personality profile matcher one. This was text ads. No pictures most of the time, and women who described themselves in very loose terms. Nothing specific. I am surprised that what happened to me this time did not happen to me the first time around. And I think the first couple positive experiences that I had with internet personal ads led to my downfall. Everything that goes up, must go down.

So there I am, e-mailing this chick back and forth and thinking that I was talking to a relatively good looking young lady. She told me she was asian which automatically led me to believe she was petite and that she was whatever tall and had dark, long hair. Reading that now . . . I know the terrible mistake I made by assuming that she looked like every other asian girl I had thought was pretty back then. We made plans to meet up on a Friday on campus, in the mid-afternoon at the Associated Student Government office. That's where I spent most of my days. . . not because I was interested in Student Government. No. I was interested in their extremely effective air conditioning system. It got like a meat locker in there, and if you have spent a summer in Southern California, you'd have done the same thing.

Anyway, the day arrives, the time comes, and I'm feeling pretty excited about meeting this girl . . . when I feel a series of *thumps* approaching the area that I was in. I wasn't sure just what the hell was making this noise and shaking the bungalow that the office was located in. And then, to my heart's discontent, in enters a behemoth of a woman. And not just any behemoth of a woman . . . she was an Asian behemoth of a woman. She asks for Jaime, and I say "That's me, let's get out of here" without thinking. My only priority is getting her out of there so my friends don't start asking questions.

So here I am, walking side by side this veritable sumo wrestler, cursing the internet under my breath. I ask her if she wants to get a bite to eat . . . a really funny question when I think about it now, and she says no. We go anyway and I order a salad from the teaching staff's mess hall. Yeah, I had connections back in the day that kept me from eating the crap that was served to the regular students. Anyway, I'm eating my salad and she's drinking her Diet Pepsi . . . the conversation is non-existant. Mostly because I'm in shock that I had arranged a date with Godzilla's lazy-eyed sister. Oh, I didn't mention the lazy eye? That was the cherry a top the ginormous sundae that was this behemoth of a woman. I finished my tiny salad promptly and we walked around a bit, when a stroke of genius hit me like a ton of bricks.

I turn around and ask her "Hey, what time is it?" She says it's about 3:30pm and I, giving a performance of a lifetime that I truly believe merited a nod from the Oscar committee say "Oh man, I totally forgot, I have a study group meeting in 5 minutes. I'm sorry, I have to go". And so ended the most uncomfortable half an hour of my life. I never did see that "girl" again. Which is kinda strange since she was so huge that astronauts on the Mir Space Station could have probably spotted her from orbit.

So kids . . . if there's anything you can take away from this story is . . . don't trust women on the internet. In the great and vast ocean that is the internet, you'll dive in looking for a wide-mouth bass and end up spending half an hour with a lazy eyed humpback whale. I don't know exactly how that analogy works, but trust me . . . it ain't pretty.