100 Emails, 20 Dates An SF girl's systematic quest to end her singlehood

Email 19, Date 6: For real this time, I shouldn't date an engineer

Even though I had completely given up on dating in a fit of extreme frustration, I kept my OKCupid profile up. I didn't check it, I didn't even get on the site, but I figured, if someone saw it and felt inspired to email me....

N. apparently did, and he responded to my "The most private thing I'm willing to admit here" section of my profile: I have a deep, abiding affection for classic country and honky-tonk (Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, George Strait) -- but I don’t expect you to share my love of music that relies so heavily on tortured metaphors, melodramatic vocals, and awesomely twangy guitars.

Date: 7/14/09
Subject: Hiya

Well, it's the usual story, I guess: your "profile photo" caught my eye, your other photos held my attention pretty strongly, and what you wrote about yourself sounds great, too (yeah, I do eventually get beyond the pictures). I'm definitely a collection of opposites, too, esp., now that I think about it, the ones you mention. I like your style and attitude, too, *and* you're pretty damn cute!

For what it's worth, amongst my music choices I've got a decent little collection of country music. I've got, in alphabetical order: The Carter Family, J.Cash, P.Cline, S.Earle, Lyman Enloe, Wanda Jackson [sort of counts?], Little Feat [ditto], L.Skynyrd [ditto again], T.Wynett, as well as stuff like Lucinda Williams, John Prine, Pete Droge,.... I say "hurray" for tortured metaphors! (Just not all-day/everyday, like anything else...)

So here I am. I'm intrigued -- write back if you are, too.

I was intrigued. I had seen his profile before. I may have even emailed him before. In one of his photos he was really hot: slightly chiseled features, eyes that sparkled with life, and attractively nerdy glasses. In his two other photos he was... Well, he looked 47. His age was the only reason I could think of that I hadn't emailed him. But at 47, he's young for the guys who are drawn to me online. So I, with absolutely nothing to lose, wrote a ridiculous email back, riffing on the following items:

• He wrote me on Bastille Day.
• He included a link to a Belgian website in his profile.
• Belgians and French have a rivalry.
• He admitted in his profile that he doesn't want to date people who live outside of SF.
• I genuinely admired his honesty about that, while admitting that admitting to that made me feel shallow.
• He described himself as quirky and brainy in his profile.

In his next email, he suggested we meet for a drink. In mine, I admitted that my only night free was about five days later (tonight). We made plans, exchanged a few more emails, and met up.

One could describe my attitude toward this date as pessimistic but open. One could also describe it as petulantly reluctant. In reality, it started off as the latter, then when I realized it would be cowardly to cancel, it became the former.

We didn't click. At all. But when he said that he was an engineer, that clicked.

I have nothing against engineers--two of my bros (who I love dearly) work as software engineers--but I can't date people who are engineers. My dad was an engineer. Two of my ex-boyfriends were engineers--no, actually, three. It's a way of thinking, of viewing the world as problems with single, definite solutions, that does not work well with my world-view that things are complex, that there are usually multiple good solutions, that not everything needs to be fixed. And perhaps most importantly, that I am not a problem that needs to be "fixed."

As I observed how N. took in information and processed it through an engineering mindset, I kept thinking, "This is excruciating."

To be fair, the conversation was not anywhere near excruciating. He was a really nice guy who had done a lot of really interesting things in his life. What is excruciating is that I know that I can't be with an engineer. I've learned that lesson. And yet I keep attracting them. And in times like this, when I am in desperate need of an ego boost, I entertain the thought of dating them.

So the next phase in 100 Emails, 20 Dates will be identifying things like this: patterns that have gotten me to where I am today--36 and single with zero prospects. The next phase will be fixing those problems. Expect many bumps in the road.