The Kind of Thing You Only See In Scented, Glossy Magazines...

My second first date was significantly better than my first, first date, but there will not be a second date in this case, either.

He was incredibly nice, intelligent. Affable, witty, kept the conversation going. I knew that whatever happened this exchange would be pleasant and I wasn't nervous beforehand at all. This guy was just so much more mature, so much nicer than the first guy even in our initial e-mail exchanges. He presented just as well in person. But. No spark. What this date had in common with the first was the mutual understanding that there would be no future meetings. It wasn't as dramatically realized, but still obvious enough, I think, fairly early on.

What I've learned from these two social outings is that even when you know who you are looking for, you have no idea who the person is. In both cases, the live version of the photograph that piqued my interest had precious little to do with the actual person who came through the doors. And while neither of the men I've seen told me this, I am almost positive that they felt the same way upon seeing me. This is the girl I agreed to meet?

I continue to feel that this whole undertaking is a success because I am learning so much about myself in these scenarios. I'm learning something about men, and just the yearnings of people in general. We're all doing our best, hoping someone will find us interesting whether we are or not. In most cases, we are not half as intriguing or dynamic or funny or smart as we think we are.

We just have these little moments when a globally acceptable version of who we are emerges and if we are lucky there is someone there with a camera, or we can cleverly turn a phrase to make our idiosyncracies endearing. And that's what we put on display for the dog and pony show world of online dating.

I get so philosophical after these dates, but really I think it boils down to what Jerry Seinfeld said on his show. 99% of the world is undatable. Undatable!