I’ve learned a ton of useful things at college, and I hate to say (sorry Mom and Dad) that most of most of this knowledge I’ve acquired outside of the classroom. One pivotal lesson I’ve gleaned from my 3 years in school: dating in college is hard.

Coming from a school with a 60/40 ratio of girls to guys, with a large slice of that 40% uninterested in boobs, I’ve got very few choices. The pool of college boys has been unimpressive and disappointing to say the least – I’m sick of random hookups with frat boys (yes, it’s true) and trying to get a college boy to commit.

I know there are some great guys out there, but maybe I’m looking in the wrong places. I’ve heard tons of success stories about online dating, but honestly, I’m a little nervous.  I’ve dabbled in the online pool, but I’m still not sure it’s the right thing for me.

Help! I’m torn.

Love it:

There are SO many different online dating sites out there. Whether you use Match.com, eHarmony, or in my case, Jdate (give me a break, I won a free trial via Twitter), there’s definitely an online dating site for you. After a long day slaving away at my internship, it’s nice to come home to an inbox full of interested guys. It’s an amazing ego boost!

Even better, when you use the Internet as your matchmaker, the dating pool gets about 500 times larger. You’re no longer limited to the gay/too proud to admit they’re gay guys you meet in your PR class. And you can stalk a hottie’s profile and know right away if you share common interests. That means it’s easy to discard (and remove from your “matches”) the losers via obvious red flags like shirtless vanity shots, photos with tons of girls, or a bio that spends way to much time discussing the guy’s mother.

I love reading about a guy’s little quirks before I even meet him – it makes striking up that first conversation so much easier. Hell, if I could scan a room full of guys at a party and know instantly that the cutie in the blue polo shirt secretly likes word games, I’d totally start talking to him.

Loathe it:

If you think you’ve met the creepiest guy of all time in your bio class, well honey, you haven’t tried online dating yet. In addition to the clean-cut, dog-loving, recent Harvard grads, there are tons of creepy, old, pedophiles that would just love to strike up a conversation with a cute girl like yourself. Oh, and they sometimes ask to video chat.

Hey, I’m trying to keep an open mind, but to me, telling a girl you’re lonely and want to… err… get to know each other better by video chatting is just a little creepy. Seriously dude, get a dog.

And that’s not even as bad as the guys who don’t wave the creep/freak flag until you are actually on the date. Like that one guy who didn’t bring money and forced me to pay for the date. Awesome. As much as I love laughing about a horrible date with friends or writing about it on my blog, sometimes I’d rather just be home watching More to Love than wasting my time on this dud.

There is also the fact that people present themselves much differently online than in real life (I’m talking to you, Mr. I Gained 30 Pounds and Grew a Rabbi Beard But Never Changed My Photo), that coming home and chatting with new guys online nightly is super time consuming, and, don’t forget, that giant stigma attached to finding love online.

Grrrr.

As I write this, I let out a huge sigh of frustration. Dating is hard, and maybe online dating is really no different than dating in a traditional sense. Maybe this post should have been titled “I’m Torn: Dating,” because honestly, I’m getting a little jaded. What would you guys do – suck it up and keep meeting guys around campus, or take the plunge and have the Internet find “Mr. Perfect” for you?

More and more people are looking for love online these days and I’ll admit, I’m one of them. I honestly don’t know where else to find a date besides the typical bar/club scene, which seems much more conducive to finding a one night stand than finding love. I don’t work in an environment where I meet eligible bachelors, I pretty much know my friends’ friends so getting set up isn’t really an option. So where else do you look? People tell me I should do something I enjoy; a cooking class, hanging out in Barnes & Noble, join some sort of sports league and I’ll meet a guy who shares similar interests with me, but as social as I am, I’m not one to go to a cooking class alone, and I have yet to meet a guy in B&N. So that leaves me with the internet.

Sure, it’s scary and I’ve had my fair share of weirdos or guys who were several inches shorter than what they claimed, or sent pictures from when they were 10 years and 50 pounds lighter, but I’ve also been taken on some pretty amazing dates and met some really cool guys, some of whom I’ve remained friends with. Obviously, my prince hasn’t come along, but maybe the timing just hasn’t been right. I’ve tried a lot of the sites out there; match.com, Plenty of Fish, okcupid, Craig’s List, eHarmony and even Jdate (yes, I’m a shiksa who likes Jewish boys). Thus far, I’ve had the best luck on Craig’s List and the worst luck with match and eHarmony (the one that claims it’ll help you find your soulmate), but as I’m still single, I haven’t had the luck I’m really looking for, so I decided to try out a new site, it’s called crazyblinddate.com, and yes, it’s crazy.

Crazyblinddate.com is run by the same people who run okcupid and it works like this: You go onto their site and click which city you live in (so far they only cover Austin, Boston, Chicago, LA, NYC, and San Francisco), then you choose if you’d rather go on a single or a double date. They inform you that you will be set up on a date at either a bar or a coffee shop (your choice), but you won’t see a picture of them or have any communication with them before your date…can you say, yikes?!?

At this point, you create a profile. Your profile consists of the basics; first name, date of birth, gender, sexual orientation, height, body type, ethnicity, religion, and education level. After that they go into more in-depth questions; “You’ll know because I look like…”, “Things I’m good at talking about…”, “What I expect of a date…” and “Before we go on a date you should know…”. After you answer these, they ask you another series of questions, which they inform you your date will never see (why ask then?). Basically they’re questions about how picky you are when it comes to intelligence, attractiveness and how far you’re willing to go if a date goes well. After that, it’s time to upload your picture. Once you’ve got your profile done and have confirmed your e-mail address, you’re set.

You tell them when you’re available for a date (they’re usually pretty last minute, like that day or the next, though you can go for something further in advance) and you answer some questions about what your preferences are for location/area of the city and your date (ethnicity, height, education level, etc.). This is where I start noticing glitches.

They tell you that your date should not be too far away, but when I click in neighborhoods reasonably close to me, I am told that I need to broaden my horizons for a better chance at getting a date, didn’t they just tell me to keep the date in my ‘hood? Once I add a few more neighborhoods, they tell me I’m being too picky in my preferences and that I’m more likely to get a date if I’m more open-minded. Okay, seriously, I have height and educational preferences, I can’t help it. I’m sorry that I don’t wanna get set up on a date with a 5’6” high school drop out, but I know right off the bat it’s not gonna go well. So I keep my preferences the way they are and hope that they can scrounge up someone for me.

So far, I’ve been offered three dates; they both e-mail and text you when they have a potential date and you have to check them out and see if you want to accept. What you get to check out is a blurred picture of the person, and all the info from their profile. I must admit, reading these guys’ descriptions, I wonder how in God’s name I’ll recognize them in a bar (unless they’re the only brown haired, brown eyed, athletic guy at the bar). I haven’t accepted any of the dates, two of them didn’t work for my schedule and one of them I just got a sense wasn’t going to be a good match for me. So today I log on to see what they have brewing and I’m told that they “almost have a date” for me and there are 29 people they can match me with if I’m a little less picky. They suggest changing my required maximum age and minimum education level. Again, I don’t want a 42 year old who flunked out of college, sorry.

So now I continue to play the waiting game to see if they find a date I feel is worthy of my time and energy to see if it’s possible to find someone you click with if you’ve never had any contact with them or even know what they look like. The saga will continue once I find a date, so stayed tuned kids, things could get interesting…

So you’re probably thinking my drunk self from the last post sloppily filled out an online dating profile (with phenomenal coherence) after her long, hard night alone and signed herself up without a second thought.

Please. I had the sense to wait a bit and soberly research this. CrazyBlindDate.com and I were hardly acquaintances. In fact, I hadn’t heard about this service until I started looking up different types of dating sites…

Basically, CBD is just meeting someone, once, at a bar or coffee shop. No strings after the first 20 minutes. This isn’t necessarily for someone looking for a future wife, so much as a bored guy on a weeknight whose friends are all working late.

CBD is available in 4 cities: Austin, San Francisco, Boston, and obviously New York. You first decide how you want to date: go solo and meet a complete stranger one-on-one, sign up with a friend and meet two strangers, or say you’ll do either.

The “either” option entails signing on to go solo, OR go on a double date, complete with THREE strangers. You can’t see a picture of your date until after you’ve met in person, so this is a toughie for the superficial. (See yours truly for details.)

I signed on for the “either” option. I figured it would make for a good story.

Next, on to “requirements“:

…age.

…height requirements.

…race and gender.

…religious affiliation.

…smoker or non-smoker.

…level of education completed.

As you’re filling this out, a little box keeps popping up. “Lighten up?” it asks. I’m sorry. I’m really supposed to go into this with no consideration of what “type” I’m looking for? Psh. No thanks.

Let me explain why I got touchy about this “lighten up” bit. I’m really tall, but unfortunately not waif-ish enough to make a career out of it. I lust after tall guys and date shorter ones (by shortest I mean 5’9″. They usually end up being right at eye-level, though.). Now that I could actually specify how tall an ideal date would be, I decided to enter my own 5’11″ for my request. I figured as that’s what I attract, I should ask accordingly.

After trying not to feel like a racist and working to avoid admitting a Catholic background (so much for finding a nice Jewish boy…another weakness), I chose a timeslot and a couple Manhattan neighborhoods to meet my perspective date. CBD is the liaison, telling you where to meet and when, but they can give you as little as an hour’s notice before the date. On the off chance I’d get set up, I skipped my gym session that evening.

For nothing. An email at 11:00 PM said I couldn’t be matched, because of my height, education level, or my neighborhood requests. I was, needless to say, a little disappointed, then bitterly rationalized that all the available tall men are probably dating those effing short girls. There’s no justice.

The cynic in me was shaking her head. For being tall and not wanting to get set up with a guy going after his GED, I’m apparently condemned to be single forever. Awesome. Thanks for boosting my self-esteem.

I filled out another, more “equal opportunity” date request, and we’ll see if that goes anywhere. If nothing else, it kept me occupied for a good hour. Maybe I’ll even meet a cool short guy.

Up next, a little research on JDate… which I so wish I could join…