With the invention of the internet, folks immediately began to use it to satisfy our primal urges. The internet is a hub for shopping, learning, sex (isn't online porn one of the main reasons the internet was invented? So that people can enjoy their depraved sexual fantasies from the privacy of their homes?) and with sex comes dating. Or what is supposed to be dating.
I have, like many in my generation, engaged in online dating. However, at the time of this writing, I have pretty much decided that online dating is not going to work for me. I have found it exhausting and mostly unsuccessful. The vast majority of men that I have met off the internet have mis-reperesented themselves so thoroughly that they have pretty much tainted it for the honest ones out there. How can I trust anyone off the internet when so many have been so dishonest?
One of my first experiences with meeting someone off the internet happened years ago and it has left and impression in my psyche that leads me to ask any internet date what their dental hygiene is like. Of course that leads to mockery and laughter and I have to explain this horrifying experience.
This...guy (he was neither a man nor a boy, well, maybe more boy-like but that's something else), I'll refer to him as John. I think, in fact, that all of the men throughout this blog shall just be called John, for the sake of ease.
John and I had been chatting from an online dating site for several weeks. We both lived in Milwaukee so it wasn't difficult to make the decision to meet up. He seemed like a decent enough guy but he was obsessed with kissing. In several of our conversations, he asked me to promise to kiss him on our first "date." It seemed odd to make such a request and despite my obviously poor choices in the past, I refused to promise such a thing. In fact, I pretty much have a rule that making promises like this lead to trouble. It creates an unreasonable expectation within something that is point blank unknown.
(I'd like to know the psychology behind this? When someone makes a request for something that simply cannot be known...fear?)
Anyway, I refused to promise to kiss him. And in reflecting, I might have vomited in his mouth if I had been held to some kind of promise like that.
This is another situation where I have pretty much blocked it out of my memory. Perhaps reliving all of these horrible dates isn't exactly healthy. I do find it humorous, however.
We met outside of a coffee shop. I had my contingency plan set up and I was ready to take off if need be. Let me tell you, the need was there. He approached me, with all the physical appearance of scrawny, malnurished drug addict and the fear of that as a truth was confirmed when the man smiled at me. He had a mouth full of rot. Green and fuzzy stumps with an odor that could destroy a small city.
I did not even go into the coffee shop. Nope. I took off. How could I possible sit across a table and engage in a conversation with a man with a toxic mouth? I also understand why he was so focused on a promise for a kiss.
This experience taught me two valuable lessons when it comes to online dating. One, have a contigency plan and two, ask after dental hygiene.
I have encountered a fairly high frequency of men with poor dental hygiene. In some cases I understand. There are, in fact, medical conditions that leads to bad teeth. There is also the condition of "laziness" that leads some folks to neglect brushing their teeth altogether leading to the toxic mouth as outline above. Poor dental hygiene makes me wonder what else they are neglecting when it comes to their health. And if they are neglecting their own health then they'll most likely neglect my needs and wants.
There's the saying that you can't judge a book by a cover but that's a load of crap. We are humans and we do judge a book by its cover. A person who projects confidence and displays a healthy amount of self care is going to be far more attractive than someone who just doesn't care about their physical self. People! These are our bodies and we are assigned to live in them until we don't anymore. No one is perfect but we should at least keep ourselves reasonably healthy so that our bodies can do the things that we'd like to accomplish.
He wanted a kiss...but his choices to neglect his own hygiene prevented him from getting a kiss.
Several weeks after I bolted away from this guy, he sent me an email to let me know how I missed out on "getting him" as he "met someone" and they were very serious and living together and whatever else. Somehow I don't think I missed out...but I'm glad he me someone who is okay with toxic mouth syndrome....
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