Peg

I had to run out to the bank and I took a little detour through Millenium park. I heard some music. Hauntingly familiar. I followed the siren’s call and it was a little Jazz band, prolly college age and they were playing Peg by Steely Dan. It sounded really good and the drummer was groovy. I stayed there and listened to the whole song. 2 other people were there with me watching, and then there were probably 20 people within 30 yards that were sitting around enjoying the ambience, chilling on the park benches, etc. When the song stopped, and I must say it stopped abruptly, whereas I believe the Aja version fades out, not one person clapped. I have to admit that I was too much of a puss to be the only one clapping, although my conscience was telling me to clap. I laughed to myself cuz it was fucked up that a 15 piece jazz band should run through a pretty solid rendition of Peg in front of people and not a one of them clapped when they were done. Bizarre.



Lately I’ve been getting kinda down cuz I can’t seem to get one of these online relationships to work. Well I know that that statement right there has a horrible assumption in it, relationship. I know I have to tone it down and just take it one step at a time, not everyone is gonna realize that I’m the bee’s knees and sometimes there’s a language barrier, I’m talking about miscommunication. Well from now on I’m going to temper my expectations and take it slow. I don’t like to generalize, but maybe there is something to be said for the likelihood of insanity among those who go online looking for romance. It’s like, you’re divorced with three kids, your ex must’ve just been a big jerk and you are just dreamy. Oops, that’s me. Seriously though, chances are that the people that seem so appealing when you read their profile, might have some serious mental hang-ups. More than likely, these hang-ups make dating and meeting people the old-fashioned way difficult, so they go online. I’m not ready to say every person who is looking for love online has a mental problem, but I’m just saying that the percentage is probably higher than in the general population. I know I’m in there too, so what does that say about me? I dunno. I guess my point is that you have to take this into account when you meet people online, and adjust your expectations accordingly.



How about a recap of where I’ve been as I’ve waded into the waters of online dating. I guess I just started getting into it around last February. I got out there on match. I went through some profiles, I couldn’t send messages cuz I was not a member. I could wink, which is basically a lame way to express interest without actually reaching out to anybody. Match also sends you e-mails and in one of these e-mails I saw a profile that def caught my eye. That’s the other thing about online dating, you are basically looking through a catalog, and if the picture isn’t good, then there’s no way you are gonna read all the other crap, you just move on. So the pic was good, I checked the profile, but it was kinda spartan, with some stupid shit in there about how she likes to do public service with her kid to teach her to help others or something. It’s like, that’s nice, and altruistic, but it’s not exactly a head turner. Anyway, she was cute, so I winked. What do you know? A few days later she winked back. This was my first online connection. I didn’t want to pay for Match, and I didn’t want to miss out on this girl, and “She was way into me…She winked.” I also had a profile at this time on OK Cupid, so I slipped it into my profile that I was on OKC, I don’t know how it snuck by the censors, but it did. No contact. After about a week, I broke down and joined Match, just so I could contact this girl. I sent her an e-mail. And she never responded. I was a little bummed about it. Not that big of a deal though. I think I’m working my way up the online dating food chain since then. It’s a work in progress.



I have stories, and that’s key. A lot of people don’t. Seriously, if I had been at work 10 years ago and heard some dude talking about how some girl is e-mailing him naked pictures of herself, I would have been green with envy. Well now I’m that guy, and I have to say, if I can do it, anyone can do it. I also have to say, it’s not that big of a deal. Well that’s bullshit, it’s actually kind of a big deal. I mean come on! I’ll share some of my other stories at a later date.