A friend of mine called yesterday to chat about his adventures in online dating.
"I know you're not ready to get back out there," he said, "but when you are, here's a tip: don't post pictures of your dog online if you want to get a date."
He went on to tell me about a perplexing trend he had noticed on a certain matchmaking site he belonged to (eSanctimonious, perhaps? I can't remember) in which women posted photo after photo of themselves with their pets. "It's the opposite of hot," he sighed. "They're all reading 'Eat, Pray, Love,' and they're all holding a cat or a miniature dog. Bleh."
One woman sent him an e-card emblazoned with a photo of her cat Fluffy wearing a pair of bunny ears, inscribed: "Fluffy wishes you a Happy Easter!"
"What was she thinking?!" he groaned. "I hadn't even met her in person yet, and her CAT wishes me a Happy Easter? Dumb, dumb, dumb. I deleted her immediately."
I know that Internet dating sites have helped countless singletons find their happy ever after, but I'm 110% sure they're not for me, so after I finished wiping away the tears of laughter over my friend's story, I said: SO THAT MEANS I CAN POST PICTURES OF MY DOG ALL DAY LONG!
"You go, girl," he replied.
"Because the only other thing I can think of that would be as much fun as dating - online or off - would be handing my heart to a butcher and asking him to run it through a meat grinder a few times."
"Yeah, posting pictures of Petra might be a good idea," my friend replied.
"And then asking the butcher, if he wouldn't mind, to hold a blowtorch to it for a minute or two, to make the raw, pulpy bits nice and crispy."
"Start posting those pictures immediately," he said.
Not that I'm planning on turning my blog into Photo Shrine to Petra, but I could. Hypothetically.
But YOU! If you're Single in San Francisco, and you're thinking about sending out a flirtatious e-card signed "With Hugs & Smooches From Fluffy and Me" - you might want to scrap those plans in a jiffy.
And swap out "Eat, Pray, Love" with "He's Just Not That Into You."
Couldn't hurt. Might help.
