Nerve
“For men naturally despise those who court them, but respect those who do not give way to them.”
July 11, 2003
I used to go to nerve.com once in a while. Look at the personal ads, write to girls here and there, and go out with a few now and then. Who am I kidding? I actually responded to a million ads and went out with a thousand girls -- give or take. You see, it was all free. It didn't cost me a cent. And here's why:
I once went out with a girl named Lorelei. I responded to her ad, and she answered. We exchanged numbers and played phone tag for a while. Finally, she called me and left a message saying that she was going to dinner with some friends, but if I wanted to, we could meet for a quick drink beforehand. By the time I called back, she was already on the way to dinner. “But if you don't mind going out with three girls instead of one, you're welcome to come along."
"Sure. Why not?"
I sat with the girls and ordered a drink. “We ordered food. Get something,” said Lorelei.
While waiting for the food to arrive, Lorelei confessed that two out of three of them actually worked for Nerve.
"Ahh, I see. It’s all starting to make sense."
And suddenly, it wasn’t on a date, but rather a customer satisfaction survey. They asked me all sorts of questions about my experiences.
"Any luck?"
"I suppose so."
"Any heartbreaks?"
"It's all a little heartbreaking, isn't it?"
When they’d finished with their questions and everyone was ready to go home, I offered to pay the bill.
"No, that's not fair. You don't have to do that."
"No, it's okay. I want to."
They were impressed by the gesture and, in return, decided to give me free unlimited credits on nerve.com for life.
"Free? Unlimited? For life? Cool, okay."
If you've never been on Nerve or don't know how it works, their personal ad system is based on credits. You buy a bunch of credits and then spend them responding to ads. Like funny money in a strip club. Or chips in a casino. They don't say, "It will cost you real American dollars to respond to this ad." Instead, they say, "It will cost you one credit."
Either way, it's cheap. But not as cheap as free. So when I had the free credits, I wrote to girls like nobody's business.
Until, finally, I hit a wall. I mean, sure, I'd met a whole lot of cool people — some that I consider dear friends— but I don't have the energy for it anymore. I took my ad down and retired.
Until one night recently, when I decided to put the ad up again just for kicks. I was curious to see who was still on there and how it's changed.
I got an immediate response from a girl with no picture and scant details. I’m not embarrassed to say that I never respond to ads without pictures. No one does. Half the fun is making snap judgments about people based on a couple of tiny photos. But this response had no pictures, so I normally would've ignored it. Even though it said she was 5'9", 130 pounds, which sounds nice, it wouldn't usually be enough to convince me to pursue things. But I did. We traded a few messages, and she seemed cool, so I agreed to meet her sight unseen. Though if I’m honest, it didn’t hurt that she was Swedish. I mean, is there such a thing as an ugly Swedish girl? Probably, but not in my fantasies. So when she called last night and invited me uptown to where she's staying for the summer, I said: "Okay."
She has a job on the Upper West Side babysitting her best friend's sister's dogs — a couple of fancypants, uptown-style dogs that skinny ladies carry around in their Prada bags on their way to lunch with other skinny ladies.
We met on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and walked to Central Park for a free concert of classical music and fireworks. Then we went for coffee. We talked about Sweden and America. I told her I loved the Hellacopters and the Hives. She was just what you'd expect from a Swedish girl. Or what I would expect, anyway. She grew up on a commune, her Dad was a jazz musician. Everything in moderation. Beautiful, but down to earth. So will I ever see her again? We'll see. Maybe. Probably not.
Were there fireworks? Yes. Were there fireworks? No.
But that’s on me.
January 6, 2004
I met Reflux for lunch, and he quizzed me on my artistic pursuits.
"Have you been doing any painting lately?"
"Nah," I said, "I've been trying to get my book finished."
"But you're having a bit of a block, are you?"
"A little bit."
"What's going on with the music?"
"Nothing."
"So you're not painting, you're not writing..." he shook his head. "You, my friend, need a muse."
"A crush would suffice."
He nodded over to the waitress, a pretty and vivacious young woman with a killer smile, and said, "That might be her right there."
"Waitresses, bar tenders — I don’t think so. Not anymore."
"Yeah," he agreed, "food and beverage servers. Stay away from them. They get hit on all the time."
“Don’t forget stewardesses.”
But, although he agreed, it didn't stop him from offering to make an introduction on my behalf. He's married with two kids, and likes to relive the glory days of his single life through me.
"Please don't," I said.
Just then, the waitress walked by our booth, where she bent down to get something. I don't know what she was doing exactly because she was behind me, but apparently, as she leaned over, Reflux caught a glimpse of her thong sneaking up from under the waistband of her black waitressing pants.
"Oh man. Dude, I just caught a glimpse of her thong."
"Oh yeah? Nice one.”
"No. You don't understand," he said. "For a guy like me, that's a week's worth of wanking material right there."
After we paid, and we were heading out the door, she smiled and thanked us.
"Did you see that smile she threw at you?" he asked.
"Bah, she smiles at all her customers."
After Reflux and I went our separate ways, I thought about what he’d said. I do need some form of inspiration, wherever it comes from.
"You should put up an ad on Lava Life," my co-worker Sarah suggested when I returned to work.
She recently took the plunge into online dating and is having fun with it. But me? I burned out on it long ago. So when she made the suggestion, I just sighed and said, "I don't think so."
"Just put an ad up. Why not? You used to have fun with it. You never know."
When I first broke up with my ex -- nearly four years ago now -- I was completely lost, and didn't have a clue about what I needed to do to become un-lost. Considering how long I'd been in that long-term relationship, the last thing I was ready to do was meet someone new. But the loneliness gnawing at my gut was relentless, and in the course of trying to get rid of it, ready or not, I started dating.
Since I hadn't dated in all those years, I wasn't even sure how to go about it. One thing I decided to do was sign up for Nerve.com’s personals site.
I responded to a zillion profiles and agreed to meet with anyone who answered. It was exhausting and expensive -- not to mention frustrating as hell. It didn't take long to realize that everyone I met was just as lost as I was. And like me, they were dating any and everyone — always hoping that the next mystery date would sweep them off their feet.
The problem is that, once you've met someone in real life, they become human, and a lot of the mystery evaporates. There's no way a real person can ever compare with the fantasy of someone you haven't met. A profile and a picture aren't much to go on, and the natural tendency is to use your imagination to fill in all the blanks in the most positive way possible. Whatever information you don't know about a person — which is obviously a lot — gets filled in with fantasy and conjecture.
It's not hard to get stuck in the cycle: idealize the person behind a profile; meet, get disillusioned, and start again.
"This one will be exactly what I'm hoping for."
Once I realized that I was stuck in this cycle, and that everyone I met had fallen into the same trap, I swore off the whole thing.
By this time, I was starting to rebuild my life a little bit and was able to meet people in more traditional ways: in bars, through friends, work, et cetera. But I soon realized that it wasn't really any different than meeting them online. New York is filled with potential — swarms of possibilities. You see someone walking down the street and think, "Whoa, look at her. She’s so perfect." But they aren't. Of course not. And neither am I, and neither are you.
