Just about this time last year I had a great idea for a series of blog posts.

I had been all single girl, girl power, makingitonmyownjustfinethankyouverymuch for quite a while, and the question on the tip of everyone’s tongue was, annoyingly enough, “So, are you dating?”

So I thought to myself, I shall sign up for an internet dating site, it will undoubtedly suck, and then I can write about the suckitude of it all.  Plus, I would have an answer that would ideally shut all that inquiry down. And off on my happy single girl life I would go.

Good plan, right?

I am full of ’em.

So I spent an evening crafting a Match.com profile.  And by “crafting” I mean writing snarky responses to the questions so I could move this experiment along and get to the part where I could talk about it in the past tense.

The responses were not untrue, yet they were not necessarily optimized to invite interest.  They included gems like “I might run like a baby deer” and “I don’t talk to strangers” and “I am not a hot spot kinda girl.”  I also probably referenced my dog as my wingman.

And I signed up for one month of internet-assisted relationship magic.

The first few days were rough. I figured out after the first day that I had to turn off the notifications lest I see every “wink” and “favorite” coming my way. I am pretty popular with the folks of my parents’ generation, which I find disturbing on a number of levels.

I received several invitations to meet for dinner – which wouldn’t work due to the whole not talking to strangers thing. Plus my fear of serial killers. And my interest in not winding up in a freezer in parts. But mostly the stranger thing.

My favorite was the 64-year-old who told me to let him know if I ever wanted to have a drink with an “eccentric uncle type.” Who wants that? Who needs an EXTRA eccentric uncle?

There were a couple of nice guys…in the sense that my flight reflex didn’t kick in immediately.  But overall it was exactly the flood of suckage that I expected.  A bunch of dudes who I am sure are delightful in the right company, but I did not want to be that company.

My experiment was right on track. I was debating whether to start writing about it real-time or whether to do a retrospective at the end of the whole thing.

Then I went to dinner with my friend.  And I outed my experiment and told her how it was panning out just as I had imagined and I was soon to be done with the whole thing.

And then she said SHE had been looking for guys for me online. Which was pretty surprising since my whole message to the universe was Hell No on the dating front. But since I was mid-experiment I could not very well claim that I wasn’t participating.

And she said – I saw this guy…he’s perfect for you.

And I was all – no such thing.

And she said, read his profile – he likes lots of things you do.  I remember her listing off Thai Food, Tina Fey’s book, and dogs. I’m sure there was more. And his daughter looked just like my daughter did about 5 years ago.

And I was all…whatever. Another chapter of suck. Bring it on.

So I found and read the profile. And he was cute and seemed smart and interested in lots of things that I thought sounded interesting. No serial killer vibe. And his kid did look eerily like my kid.

So I emailed him. The subject line on the first email was “Sarcasm and Dogs.”

And then he emailed back.

And that happened over and over.

And then we started texting.

And then we met in person.

And we never stopped.

And almost a year later, I am not so much a single girl anymore (don’t get all flustered out there people – this isn’t a big announcement of any kind…)

But ultimately the experiment didn’t suck at all. So much for my big plans.

Darn.  And yet, yay!