About to Get Her Feet Wet... Once Again...

After a brief stint volunteering for the 2010 Inside Out Film Festival......

After discussing the options and the general "scene" with all the close companions.....

After clicking through a spate of new profiles at our favourite last resort, Plenty of Fish.....

... I might have convinced myself to give the online dating pool another shot.

There are no profiles out on the site at the moment -- there's no more than a tentative toe out there in the water, both testing the temperature and gauging the plunge.

But the alluring spark of potential has returned and it's luring me out to dark waters ahead.

Still, I know I would prefer to meet someone face-to-face first. I want to feel the gentle pull of attraction between two people and I want to experience the slow build across the senses drawing me toward another person. The worrisome aspect of the online world is its penchant for reductionism -- we are downsized to a series of photos, a few keywords, and a condensed paragraph constituting a profile.

As much as I deride the practice, I am aware of its advantage when it comes to the queer scene. I get awkward in the bars and find the bass-frenzied swirl of the dance floor daunting. I am still on the lookout for events catered to queer women + business/activity-based interests. I liked Inside Out for the sheer fact I had immediate conversation topics with fellow volunteers and patrons alike. Now, it's a matter of finding more events like these and launching myself into them.

Hmm. It's a rather loaded night for questions and such. I have more to discuss with the companions, but that shall be left to future evenings filled with tea and gossip.

For now, I turn to contemplation and manga before the onset of bedtime.

The Wide World of DATING

... I can feel it happening again.... it's that quiet tugging at the back of my mind when the autumn is reaching its colder points.... it's that vague, half-wondering state over the cause(s) of my singledom... I can almost hear the Siren song of Plenty of Fish and all its potential dating connections....

Yes, I've been pondering this matter for a number of weeks now. Ship Sharp and The Aussie have been apartment hunting together; My Advocate dove into the world of online dating and is frolicking among the avalanche of e-mails she's received; and one of my favourite bloggers, Ferry Tales, has been debating the same issues raised by PoF that I've been concerned about, too...

Girl, I need to get a date.

I swear, it must be a condition of winter -- the need to date is all mixed in with that need to eat hearty meals and hibernate/curl up in the warmth of a fleece blanket. We're all getting cozy as the cold sets in and that cuddling sort of vibe --> DATING. (This is a part of the reason why us Canadians are just so lovable -- because WE ARE COLD. ALL THE TIME.)

Serious though, I am still such an amateur at this whole dating game. I mean, don't get me wrong -- I am AWESOME when it comes to first dates. Like, freakishly so. I'm good with small talk, so it's never an issue. But, second dates...... well. That's a whole different breed, that one.

One of the main reasons I pushed dating to the background had to do with my "pre-Out" days -- I knew it wasn't fair to A) See someone behind my parents' backs and B) Force a girl to closet herself in order to date the still-closeted me. 

But, I'm out now. It's a whole new state of being for me. The former excuses have dissipated and, well.... um, I'm.. still...single -- Granted, I know these things take time to change and blah blah blah, self-enlightenment and other intelligent insights.

It boils down to me being a N00B, with capital zeroes (if that is at all possible in 1337-speak). I've deleted my account at PoF twice in 2009 alone. Hmm, I should probably dedicate a post to the dating issues I've encountered. I'm curious to know how many other ladies out there have come across these same problems, both online and in person. We can compare our battle wounds, what say you?

But yes, definitely debating a brash comeback to the deep end of the dating pool. Time to polish up that weathered profile and dive on in... though a helmet might be in order, just in case I hit the ocean floor once again.