The summer slump was over, and I was riding high on all the matches that were coming my way. By now, I could easily pick and choose which ones I was really interested in. I replied to everyone who “winked,” “liked,” or “favorited” me, thanking them, telling them whether I was interested in pursuing a further connection. It was almost like working a conveyor belt.
As the matches appeared before me, I could select or skip them. I began to take for granted that I would probably be meeting people electronically the rest of my life. Some of these I would email for a while, some I would meet in person, and some I would never have contact with.
One day a match appeared who really stood out. I suddenly had thoughts that maybe one day I’d be on a commercial, touting that this electronic dating was really real and worked. The profile looked too good to be true. He was good-looking, with a smile that I expected would shoot twinkles from his teeth. He liked everything I did, including my very favorite TV show. That was a biggie--an unexpected biggie!
Of all the matches I’d looked at, and they were now numbering in the hundreds, he was the only one who loved USA’s show Psych. It was a witty, sharp, and humorous show. I’d never seen an episode that hadn’t made me laugh, and I could barely wait each week for a new episode. I owned all the seasons of it on DVD, and when it was on hiatus, I survived by replaying each season just to get my “Psych fix.”
Here, right in front of me, was a match surely made in television heaven. I couldn’t wait to contact “SIKELUVR.” (Okay, so he couldn’t spell Psych, but at that point I didn’t care.) I hoped he would respond, and sure enough, the very next day he did.
I was thrilled. Would he like to meet sometime? Yes, he would. Hooray. This was too good to be true. However, his next email said he was headed down to a relative’s home in Arizona. From there, he might mosey on over to either New Mexico, or the Appalachians, or both, so he’d get back in touch with me.
I’d never before known anyone who could just, all of a sudden, “mosey” to two totally different places on the map. In my Psych-enamored condition, I was in awe. What a man he must be—willing to go where the wandering stars led him. And he loved Psych.
I promised him I would record the next few weeks of Psych episodes for him, and maybe that could be our first date—to watch those episodes when he returned? He was so thankful! “What a great idea! You would really do that for me?” he wrote.
“Just have a safe trip, and hurry back!” I eagerly responded. “I can even fix popcorn!”
I was almost smug about the way I had handled securing a date. I bet he’d never known a woman who was willing to DVR and pop popcorn for him. I could hardly wait for him to return to Iowa. It was almost like Psych hiatus time, only I didn’t have any DVDs of this guy. I was giddy with anticipation. I hardly looked at any other matches, because I knew in my heart that this guy just had to be made for me.
One week, then two weeks, went by. No correspondence from him at all. By the end of the third week, I began rereading “Sike’s” last emails to me to see if I had missed anything, but no. Nothing popped out at me. I was missing my new friend, and I hadn’t even met Sike in person yet. Finally, I pulled up his profile so I could gaze at his wonderful smile again, and imagine how his teeth would shine as he smiled at me in the light of the TV as we watched Psych together.
His profile was blocked! What does that mean? What would Gus or Shawn of Psych fame do? I checked all the dating site’s definitions of the various words they used. Here it was. “Blocking” a profile was the equivalent of slamming a door shut and locking it. Oh, no, I thought. That can’t be right. Maybe he blocked his profile so that other women wouldn’t be bugging him, since he probably feels the same way about me that I do about him. Yeah. That has to be it.
Or . . . horrible thought! Had Sike died on his trip? Or had he met some female on the road, and they’d decided to cross the country by motorcycle, like a Harley-Davidson Lancelot and his Guinevere? I hate motorcycles, I decided.
Had my perfect match taken the chicken way out of dumping me—before I could even technically be dumped? The fog of enamored fantasy lifted, and I came to my senses. Well, it didn’t take a Psych-ic to figure this out. This guy was a jerk who’d messed with me! I blocked him, too. At least it was a lesson learned.
From English Lit class forty-six years ago, I recalled a quote:
“For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these:
‘It might have been.’”
— John Greenleaf Whittier
“NEXT!”
— Becky Beaman