MY TRUE.COM DATING EXPERIENCE

A couple of weeks ago on a whim I decided to join True.com. They were offering free month-long trials, and I needed some writing material.

True prides itself on being an internet dating service for hot people. They lure you in with adverts featuring impossibly attractive people claiming to be single and desperately in need of that special brand of geek loving only you can provide.

This couple is apparently being attacked by the Pastel Octopi of Love.

Once you agree to the trial period, you're allowed to build your "looking for" profile. True offers a lot of customization for this aspect of the service. I started out fairly cautious, sticking to the middle of the road on most questions, until I got here:

At this point I remembered I was doing this for maximum entertainment value and not because I wanted something approaching an actual relationship. I went back to the beginning and restructured my profile to only return the best, the brightest, and the hottest men. Let's see the cream of True's crop!

(On a side note, who the fuck chooses "needing improvement?" Plastic surgeons looking for business?)

I also added a little blurb in my "soul mate" section, trying to nail the zeitgeist of detached and uninterested cleverness that characterizes the writers of my generation:

"My soul mate will put up with my quirks: my constantly cold feet, my habit of leaving chew marks in any pen laying around my apartment, my occasional need to be a complete geek, my rampant arachnophobia. They will like dirty americanos and clean socks. They will not say "that's so metal" unless they're being facetious. They will know what the word "facetious" means. They will understand the proper usage of irony. My soul mate probably does not exist."

I sat back and waited for the hotness to flood my inbox. In less than 24 hours, I had over 64 emails waiting for me, from such winners as:



I wish I could say these were the worst by far...but I only pulled an average slice of the Scary Pie for you.

These Lotharios left me messages ranging from fairly long statements about "shilvery" and how totally awesome their motorcycles are...



...to very direct statements such as:

Be still, my heart.

The moral of this story so far? Men on the internet have a dramatically overinflated opinion of how they look. They also think we're going to be impressed by grotesque mispellings and awesome motorcycles.

There was one exception to the general rule of horrific misrepresentation:
Meet Sean. He's hot, he's sassy, he's single. He is, I think, the only attractive man on True.com currently. He lives in Fargo, ND. I'm still debating if he actually exists, but decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. He probably doesn't exist, but it would be nice if he did, wouldn't it? This is what I'm talking about, people. If you're going to do this, do it goddamn right. Don't bill yourself as the Hottest Thing Since the Foreman Grill unless you've got a hot picture to go with it.

True.com also provides member services such as their Coaching Center, where they try to teach socially unfortunate losers to crawl out of their mother's basement and talk to people. This is what my Coaching Center looked like:



I'm so happy there are people like Coach Fite out there to help me find my special woman.

I canceled my month trial after only one week. I actually had to call the True.com service to cancel it, which let me chat for a bit with Theresa, the impossibly perky receptionist. She seemed genuinely confused that I was canceling my free month after only a week, and wanted to know why.

"But, it's free for the rest of the month. Why are you canceling now?"

"Is this call being recorded, Theresa?"

(Slight pause here. When she speaks again I think some of her perkiness has leaked out her ears.)

"...um, I can't tell you that for certain, but it might be."

"Theresa, if you really want to know why, I want you to make sure this call is being recorded. Otherwise, just cancel my service, please."

(Longer pause. Perkiness resumes. She is a professional, after all.)

"Okay, you're all canceled out. Have a great day!"

I thought this would be my last exchange with True, but they proceeded to flood my mailbox with dating spam for about a week after I canceled. I finally managed to clear myself of any True-related spam a few days ago. It was like removing a stubborn tumor. I don't recommend True.com; the level of satisfaction was roughly the same as having drunk fratboys try to pick me up in a dive bar.

THINGS THAT AMUSE ME: AIRFORCE NUTRISODA

I found this in my dad's refrigerator last night. Nutritional pop?

"It's supposed to help my joints, I think." Dad points at the label. "See? It's called 'Flex.'"

I skim the back of the can. "Helps lubricate, repair and restore active joints for improved movement and flexibility.**"

"**This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease."

Okay, so it's supposed to be healthy pop. My first impression of this thing is jesus, that can is small. If that's how much a typical soda serving should be, our Big Gulp-loving nation is in serious trouble. Unlike that Diet Coke, however, Nutrisoda is packed full of Good Things™ like vitamins B6 and B12, magnesium, zinc, and ginseng. My "Flex" can also had stuff like glucosamine, chondroitin, L-lysine and L-proline, which sound like lower bowel disorders. Chondroitin is supposed to "attract fluid to proteoglycan molecules." I wasn't even aware I had proteoglycan molecules, much less that they were in imminent danger of dehydration. I popped the top and chugged. Aaaaah. I hoped my body was appreciating the 200% daily recommended allowance of B12 I just poured into it. I hoped my proteoglycan molecules were swelled to the brink with fluidic goodness. The only outward sign was a fairly loud burp about 20 seconds later. Juicy!

My can was supposed to taste like black cherry and apple, but I think the taste was much closer to the "Splenda meets indeterminate fruit punch flavorings" these types of drinks tend to have. Nothing new there.

Of special note: if you go to their website (advertised prominently on the back of each can), you can buy special "lifestyle paks" of Nutrisoda! They have such gems as the "Smoker's Quit Pak," the "Spa Pak," and the "Golf Pak." My personal fave is the "Party Pak," where you can perk up your metabolism beforehand with "Energize," stave off the premature aging effects of smoking and drug abuse with "Radiant," and justify your crippling alcoholism by toting along your own healthy "Slender" mixers. Cheers!

Sidebar: I have yet to figure out the whole Airforce/airplane logo thing. You wouldn't be allowed to take these cans on a plane and I doubt the US Airforce is pulling royalties from this shit.

MUSIC SENSORY OVERLOAD

I've long considered myself musically-impaired. I didn't start to pay attention to music until I started college and I still know very little about any of it except that I hear stuff occasionally that I like. Fortunately, I'm blessed with the friendship of some of the biggest indie-music snobs/geeks/obsessives this side of Cleveland, who've helped me develop my tastes. My only problem now is I'm having a hell of a time finding the music itself. The stuff I want doesn't exactly get stocked at my neighborhood Best Buy. At the suggestion of my friend Erin, I signed up to a site called www.emusic.com. Holy crap! Suddenly I'm up to my eyeballs in music, all ready and available for my downloading pleasure. I hardly knew where to start, so I started here:

Electric Six - Fire!

I'm a fan of these guys. I saw them at the Grog Shop a while ago (they're also playing the Grog again on Nov. 3). They're decadently, unapologetically, cleverly(?), dumb. I haven't figured out yet if the disco/rock/new wave mishmash they put out is ironic genius or just some guys making really fun, stupid music, and frankly I don't care. If you need to get your mad funk on, these guys are a good way to do it.

Interpol - Antics

Not Electric Six. I like them anyways.

James Figurine - Mistake Mistake Mistake Mistake

Do you like The Postal Service? This guy (Jimmy Tamborello) is the same guy who does The Postal Service! It doesn't sound anything like The Postal Service, though. I like to type The Postal Service for some reason.

Seriously, it's a good album. Downtempo, breaky-bass unf-unf-unf music. I like to think it's Jimmy Tamborello's way of coming home and lounging around in his boxers.

The New Pornographers - Twin Cinema

I'd never even heard of these people until today. Apparently this is their third album, which means I live under a rock when it comes to awesome music. Guitars! Guitars! Guitars guitars guitars! Tempo shift to vocal arrangement, then, GUITARS! Yayyyyy!

The Stills - Logic Will Break Your Heart

Fuck you, I like these guys.

The Wondermints - Mind if We Make Love to You

Another previously unknown band...but how can you go wrong with a name like The Wondermints? Nice 60's surfish rock sound. I'm glad they don't suck, because their name rules.

HAUNTED, JONATHAN STRANGE AND MR NORRELL

Haunted - Chuck Palahniuk

What to say about a book that, in the first 20 pages, contains a story that has so far caused 60-odd people to faint during various public readings? The story is succinctly (and appropriately) titled Guts and will probably make me look askance at squid and swimming pools for a good long while. It is merely one, however, of a multitude of extremely fucked-up narratives that comprise this book. To use the descriptor "gore-fest" would be putting it mildly. To put it a little less mildly, ever wondered what a freshly-miscarried fetus tastes like? You'll find out eventually.

This is the first book by Palahniuk I've read, and also the first book where I actually had to take breaks from reading not because I was bored or tired or I had to pee or I needed a sandwich, but because I was so overwhelmed by what was going on in the text that I had to stop every once in a while in order to prevent my brain from completely tweaking out. This is a very hard book for an immersive reader. That being said, I do recommend it. Palahniuk's stories, while nearly always dealing some some horrific notion, are very clever and at times, hilarious. The short story about the New Age foot-masseuses embracing the shady side of their profession is some fine dark comedy, and I admit it...I giggled while I was reading about the fetus. I am a sick, sick, person.

Haunted deals with the public's contradictory attitude towards reality entertainment: they want it to be real but it must also be entertaining, something which true reality very rarely is. Also, does glorifying the concept of reality simultaneously destroy the concept of creativity? The characters of Haunted, initially hoping to reach their ultimate creative peak during three months of seclusion, instead plunge themselves into a self-created reality, a Hell carefully crafted for maximum entertainment value. Their eventual downward spiral is amazingly, almost frighteningly fast, which leads me to believe Palahniuk has a rather dim view of human nature in general. I tend to agree with him, but in a slightly different way: as god-awful as the events described in Haunted are, I firmly believe there's some reality-TV network exec out there who would option it.



Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke

After experiencing something like Haunted, I felt the need for lighter fare. Why I thought an 800-page book about the historical attributes of English magic in the early 1800's, replete with period prose and footnotes, constituted "lighter fare" is a mystery even to me. While browsing the book bins at Borders (alliteration is fun) I saw this fat paperback, proclaiming boldly across its cover "NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!" "TIME MAGAZINE'S #1 BOOK OF THE YEAR!" I flipped it over and among more accolades and awards, I saw an excerpt from Neil Gaiman:

"Unquestionably the finest English novel of the fantastic written in the last seventy years."

Whoa. Seriously? Mr. Gaiman, being an accomplished author himself, surely knows the weight that statement carries. I mean, he's putting this book above Tolkien. This, along with the fact that I would probably, to paraphrase my friend Ian, "shoot the Pope if Neil Gaiman asked me to," compelled my purchase of this novel. That and it was sitting in the $7.99 bin. I'm a frugal fanatic.

Naturally, with such shining recommendations, I went into this book with high hopes. A devoted Austen reader, the notion of slightly Gothic prose and style didn't deter me in the slightest. I dove in with gusto.

400-some pages later, I found myself wondering when the story would start picking up. Uh oh. Did Neil do me wrong? I began idly skimming pages, trying to get through them faster and faster in the hopes that I would eventually snag a plot thread. Threads there were a-plenty (you simply cannot write an 800-page work of fiction without including some plot), but they just weren't that interesting. I guess Clarke meant this to be a slightly serious historical treatment, because it's chock-full of all the dry detachment that one associates with ponderous volumes like The War of 1812 and Napoleon's Favorite Breakfast Foods During the Second Empire. The parts of the book I ended up liking the most were the footnotes, which given the overall tone of her writing, doesn't surprise me. I felt this was where Clarke really shined...I really didn't give two whits about the fate of Jonathan Strange or Mr. Norrell, but the sheer amount of "historical" research that Clarke piled into her footnotes fascinated me. She fabricated an entire magical literary history, tracing back centuries, of sources and authors who refer to and criticize and extoll each other as accurately as any modern professorial college. I found the footnotes completely charming. I could have done without the rest, except that then the footnotes wouldn't have any notes to foot.

In Clarke's defense, the story did eventually pick up, 100 pages before the end. In an 800-page book, that's fucking depressing. I say wait for the movie adaptation, or read it if you, like me, have an overwhelming fondness for clever footnotes. There can't be many of us out there.