Being single is fun for a while, but it gets old. Sometimes I like to have a girlfriend. Unfortunately, it’s hard to meet quality women in bars and clubs. I used to love meeting girls at bookstores, but those don’t really exist anymore. Coffee shops used to work, but now it’s almost impossible to find one where everyone in it doesn’t have their eyes fixated at all times on their iPhones. It’s just harder to meet women in the digital age. So if you can’t beat’em, join ‘em. I guess. I had never tried online dating before, but I knew a guy who described it as shooting fish in a barrel, so I thought I’d give it a try.

So I went to one of the sites, uploaded my picture, then started answering all those fucking questions. When I was filling the thing out, I almost said “fuck it,” more than once. I hate those questionnaires where you’re describing your perfect mate and your perfect date and all that shit. It just doesn’t feel very masculine. But I managed to get through it, somehow.

Then they sent me a list of women that they had matched me up with based on my responses to the questions (and theirs, I guess). I went through and picked the ones I liked, feeling a little like I was looking through a mail-order bride catalog. So, it’s a little cold, but all and all, it didn’t seem so bad. There were a lot of cute chicks.

Well, one of them picked me as well and we sent a few emails back and forth to each other. Then I asked her for her phone number and she gave it to me, so we talked on the phone a couple times. We seem to get along well enough, so I asked if she wanted to meet for a drink. She said yes. So, great.

We set up a time, pick a bar, then I went down there early to wait for her (always be the first to show up for these sorts of things, by the way). While I was waiting, I started to lose my enthusiasm a little. I felt like I knew too much about this person, considering I haven’t even met her yet. I felt like we’d blown through all my first date material before we’d even had a first date. But as it turned out, it didn’t matter.

There I am, standing outside the bar, looking up and down the sidewalk, and I remember thinking to myself, “Hey, why is that fat chick waving at me?” Then she got a little closer and I thought, “Oh no.”

It was her, but she was at least fifty pounds heavier than she was in the picture. And I got a little pissed. Now, before anyone out there calls me shallow or whatever, come the fuck on. I’m not talking five or ten pounds. Fifty. She was enormous. That’s bullshit. Total false advertising. She knew we were going to meet. She knew how hot she looked in that picture and she knew what she looked like for real. Did she honestly think I wasn’t going to be disappointed? Who am I, the greatest, most understanding guy in the world? Hell no.

I didn’t lie about myself. I was honest about what I looked like and how much money I made and all that.

But I smiled, gave her a “nice to meet you” hug, then muddled through the date. She was nice enough, but she was, quite literally, a big fat liar, and I don’t suffer big fat liars. So that was the last time I saw her.

The next girl I picked wasn’t quite as cute, but she wasn’t bad, either. So, again, I get her to meet me at a bar, and…phew. She looked exactly like her picture. We have a couple drinks, and we’re getting along fine, but it became pretty clear pretty quick that she was crazy as hell. A lot of talk about ex-boyfriends and restraining orders. So, I took a pretty big risk by banging her. Yeah, I know. It’s not cool to sleep with girls that you have no intention of ever seeing again, but hey. Crazy chicks are phenomenal in bed.

Anyway, when I got home later that night, I cancelled my account on the dating website. Lord knows you don’t need to pay twenty bucks a month to meet fat, crazy chicks. You can do that for free.