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I'm pushing thirty, living with my parents & cuddling with my dogs every night. Things do not look promising on the homefront, so I've joined the masses despite my skepticism.

Step One: Create a kickass profile that will make me appear confident, entertained with my current life, far from desperate & not a heavy drinker. (By the way, it's apparently fine for men to drink "regularly" where women should only be "social drinkers." Strike one, Lucygirl.)

Building your personality resume is stressful and a little degrading. It's very easy to make your profile misleading, even if you don't intend to mislead. There's no charming way of saying, "I'm loud and obnoxious and my inside voice has bullhorn volumes. I get drunk in public and announce inappropriate details about my bathroom visits." So you figure a way to beat around the bush. (That's what she said.)

My profile includes the following information:

• I am "curvy." (I initially chose "a few extra pounds," but who's counting? You'd be surprised at the change in interested I received when this change was made. I've been getting a lot more attention since I converted! But I still don't really know the difference. I'm both curvy AND packing a few extra pounds.)
  
• I like to have fun. (I don't know how else to say "excessive drinking.")
• I am a social drinker. (What? I am. I'm just very social.)
• I go to church and I want to date someone who would like to go to church with me. (And drive me around after the excessive drinking. Er, I mean, "fun.")
  
• I like board games.
  
• I'm reading a book about serial killers.
  
• I smoked a lot of pot in college. (Why not include this?)
• I'm loud.
  
• I've never been married.
• I want to have children.

I have nine pictures uploaded in various stages of sobriety and weight flux. Keep 'em guessing, right? But at least all the pictures are of ME. A lot of the profiles I view have pictures of their kids (sure, that's nice), their dogs, places they've visited, their truck, their motorcycle. Am I going to date your motorcycle?

I digress (Lucy's had cocktails...and loves parenthesis).

So I put my profile out there once I've polished it up the best I know how. I'm ready for the world of internet lovers to seek me out, to swoon, to profess their need to be in my life.

For the first several weeks, it was gut-wrenching just to sign in. I was not yet brave enough to go showing my own interest in others, so I didn't really "browse" very much. Without me making the initial contact, no one can tell me straight out that they don't like what they see. However, silence is sometimes more insulting than dismissal. And that's what I got for the first three weeks: silence.

Oh, the pain, the agony of waiting. My pictures were good(ish). I was totally witty in composing my description. Maybe it was the church thing? Well, screw 'em. I go to church. And I'll want them to go too. They should know that. Surely that's not keeping them at bay...

Apparently, it just takes a little patience (what's that?). The e-mails soon began arriving. Is it against some kind of rule to publish them here? Defamation of character? Copyright infringement? Also, I'm a little drunk.