Embracing my CAPS

For those of you who don't know, I write a relationship column called The Playing Field for Toronto-based niche publication King West Magazine. This is my latest piece that ran in the summer issue:

There comes a time in every Thirtysomething Single Girl's life when the middle modifier starts to write itself out in all-caps. SINGLE. If it were a neon sign, it would flicker and make a buzzing sound. As a billboard sign outside a rundown motel, the "S" would hang upside down and swing idly in the breeze. If you listen close enough, you might even hear a faint squeak. It's like, all of a sudden, the word no longer says unattached, but unattached.

When my caps lock key got stuck last fall, it caused a brief, albeit alarming panic to set in. In a not entirely un-Bridget Jonesian fashion, I found myself being asked by lots of unsingle people why I was still single — something I somehow had managed to escape until now. Whether it was because I live like a child or act like a child, no one ever really questioned why I was still on my own after all these years. But as a significant birthday drew near, my marital status started to draw suspicion from even my oldest and most trusted cronies — the ones who've been privy to my marriage conspiracy theories, deep-seated commitment issues and misanthropic tirades for decades.

To say that I was blindsided would be an exaggeration. I know what my friends see: a reasonably attractive and intelligent woman with a keen sense of style and a clean criminal record. Who wouldn't want a piece of this, right? As is often the case when faced with a truth that niggles at the back of your subconscious, I too was feeling crowded by the caps.  

Of course I have loads of beautiful, single girlfriends, and of course we are totally content being on our own. If the right man comes along, great! If not, so be it.

Eventually, though, you start questioning serendipity and it doesn't look good. Then come the thinly veiled arguments: A little social experiment wouldn't hurt, we say. I need to get myself out of my comfort zone, one points out. My liver can't handle the excessive drinking that comes in the name of socializing, another argues. It'll make for great material, I reason.

And up goes the online dating profile.

Marketing is a powerful tool, dear reader. Anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something. Those schmaltzy eHarmony commercials with their giggling couples and two-month timelines-to-happiness had me hook, line and sinker. It was, I told myself, the 21st-century version of a discreet matchmaker and would result at the very least in a date with a man who could a) write a coherent sentence, b) enjoy a good action-adventure or c) afford to shell out for two coffees.

At first, I would feel a faint thrill as I'd open my email in the morning and find my matches of the day. I did the math: 10 matches per day for the 30-day period would result in 300 possible mates. There had to be one diamond in all that rough. But as the days ticked away and I continued to receive grinning emoticons from Tonys and Franks and Dinos, I grew suspicious. Evidently, despite having checked the Caucasian, Hispanic and African-American boxes, eHarmony, like my mother, felt it was important that I date within my own culture.

By day five, I was ready to call it quits. Despite my jocular attitude and promising math calculations, my self-loathing was starting to reach a dangerous apex every time I opened one of those daily emails and, frankly, I don't need anything to fan the flames. I had nothing against the Tonys and Franks and Dinos — some of them were even cute, and employed! But I simply couldn't continue to participate in a mating ritual that reeked of computer-generated insincerity.

Yet something told me to wait. I don't know if it was another TV commercial or the slipped disk I suffered from carrying a heavy suitcase up the stairs by myself, but I decided to give it one more day. I know what you're thinking. Serendipity! And in a way it was. Because when I opened my email the next day and surveyed my matches, someone caught my eye. A man who was strangely familiar, who possessed traits eerily similar to mine and was completely and oddly in synch with my personality. It was as though we had known each other all our lives. And you know what? We had. Because he was my brother.

I took it as a sign. A sign to take down my profile and never look back. I think I'll stay in my comfort zone, poison my liver and find material elsewhere. The universe — cyber and otherwise — is clearly telling me online dating is not the answer. I'll stick with my caps, thanks.