It's a Game Boy; It's a Game, Boy.

The Waiter and I never actually made it out on a date. He blew me off...twice. I didn't respond to give him a third chance. I was shocked that he had flaked on me. And as I thought about that more, I realized how silly that was. He was an absolute stranger. We had literally said seven sentences to each other since we met...literally. I had absolutely no idea what any of his personality flaws were and I was surprised when one of them turned out to be flakiness? Why did I think that I knew him enough to think that this was out of character for him?

The answer is simple. I blame the internet.

In the days leading up to our date, it concerned me that I didn't know anything about this guy. I didn't know if he was a good age for me. Or if his actual career was being a waiter, or if he had other things that he was working on. Or if he allegedly had ever used a machete to hack a woman up into tiny morsels and bury those morsels under his shed. I needed a balance of normalcy. I had to find out something about him before we went out...at least his last name, so that I could send an e-mail to my sisters saying, "I'm about to go out on a first date with so-and-so. If you never see me again, tell the police to start there." So, I consulted a trusty little website known as facebook.

I knew his first name and I knew the restaurant that he worked at. So, I typed in "Men named [Waiter] who work at Union Bar" and what do you know, up he popped. You know how sometimes, you'll stumble across someone's profile and the entire thing is set to public?!?!?! The choir sings Hallelujah and little pieces of confetti in the shape of computers fall from the sky.

By studying his facebook profile, I convinced myself that we were meant to be. Yes, he was only 28 years old. But, he was a musician! I play music! He "liked" the hit musical RENT! I like the hit musical RENT! We even had the SAME quote from Word Porn on our timeline. 'It's been an ugly day,'she said. 'Tell me something beautiful?' And he said her name".

[Side note: When I mentioned this to Andrea, she called shenanigans. "I refuse to believe that a 28-year old man has that on his facebook timeline."]

It was clearly fate. I was already planning what song we would sing together at our wedding reception. Obviously, it would be something from RENT.

Now, the reality is that none of this was evidence that we were compatible. This is a man that I met in one of the most hipster cities in the country. Of course he's a musician. They all are. And even though he's a musician, he plays the Game Boy. Yes, the Game Boy...

This one...

And yes, he loves Rent, but who doesn't? If you like music, you like Rent. And the Word Porn pic, I'm willing to chalk up to coincidence. Anyway, I had built him up in my head to be this person and already felt close to that person and that person wasn't even real. That's what the internet does to us.

A friend of mine was telling me about how on her first date with someone from okcupid, he wanted to be one of those couples who sits on the same side of the booth. On their first date! That's weird. The other day, I friend requested Tahmoh Pennikett on facebook. I'm friend requesting C-list celebrities on facebook. That's crazy. Would I ever go up to a C-list celebrity in real life and say, "Would you like to be my friend?" Creepy... How do we feel that close to someone who is essentially a stranger? How do we get there? The internet. It lulls us to a false sense of intimacy.

[Note: I'm deliberately not taking responsibility for being a facebook creeper, or as I like to call it Facebook Detective. You use the tools that are at your disposal. Say, someone gets in a car accident. If they didn't have a car in the first place, the accident never would have happened, right? They can't be held liable!! ....ok, they can. Bad example. Actually, there really aren't any good examples. Forget it! I'm NOT TAKING RESPONSIBLITY FOR THIS!]

Even though the Waiter ditched me twice, there is some good in all this. All of this has led me to believe that the internet is not to be used for evil. And by evil, I mean making up imaginary relationships in my head. I feel as though I've really grown in the past few minutes. And I have the Waiter to thank for it. Plus, since I thought that he had chickened out, I coined the fabulous phrase "motherclucker", which I'm now going to incorporate into my urban vernacular.