biting the bullet

Much like someone who holds their nose when taking a vile medicine I'm deciding to dip my foot back into online dating with match. My mom was the real motivator. She keeps emailing me profiles of men with graduate degrees and nice smiles that she notices on match. These men get bonus points, meaning my mom comments even more about them, if they are superb spellers (they've got spellcheck on match now so it shouldn't be that difficult). My mom means well and she knows I'd like to share my life with someone so she keeps trying to nudge me back into online dating, even offering to pay for my subscription, if money is what's holding me back. It's not the money that's kept me out of the dating pool. The whole internet dating scene is pretty much anathema to me but I'm looking at it as a necessary evil towards meeting someone, since I'm not getting any younger and I'm pretty much sick to death of spending all my free time alone. In some ways it's easier than meeting someone in person because I have no clue when someone is interested in me, I need the romantic equivalent of an anvil dropped on my head to get the hint. So in virtual dating I can get winks or emails and that's a hint even I'm not obtuse enough to be puzzled over. It's also much easier for me to flirt through writing than in person. But not on the phone, and unfortunately, some guys like to preemptively screen potential face to face dates with a phone call and if that happens I'll quickly fall out of the potentially date worthy pool. Phone calls when I don't really know someone make me feel as awkward and uninspired by just what to say as I was when I was middle school and the silences on the phone with boys I was 'going out' with would make me blush and stammer to find something (anything!) to fill that gap of nothingness between our ears. But another really tough thing with online dating is the need to sell myself in writing and, you know, if your skill is to pick yourself apart that isn't the easiest thing to do. So what do I write? How do I make myself date worthy? Well I can always hold off on that until I get a decent profile picture to put up, and with the way my hair is looking lately it might be months until I can put a decent profile up.