The Adventures in Online Dating

The benefits of living a little...

So, this weekend I traveled down to DC for a quick visit with one of my girlfriends. Remember when I told you about my fail at online dating a while back? Well, she and I joined OkCupid together out of moral support. She went on a few dates with one guy, I went on zero - meaning it was pretty much a fail for her, too...that is, until this weekend.

Apparently, there's a new OkCupid feature so that when you travel, you can update your profile and check out local cuties in the area. Out of boredom, while the rest of us were sleeping, she started scrolling through the locals on her OKC mobile app and came across this guy and by the time we got to brunch, they had set a date to meet in the evening. I wasn't quite sure how this was going to work: should my other friend and I drop her off or should we also go and just sit in another part of the restaurant to make sure she wasn't kidnapped and maimed? I know that's dramatic, buy hey, people are cray! We decided on the latter, since he was already out with his peeps getting drinks.

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When we arrive at the restaurant, me and June hit the bar and order drinks while Pam meets her date. I think we were all a little weirded out, even though technically you know more about a person you meet online than you do a stranger you meet at the club. But it all worked out - the immediate vibe was: "Tell your friends to get with my friends...and we can be friends." My friend and I tried hard to be invisible as we sat right across from our homegirl and her digital love, but it was impossible and it quickly became a group date. But guess what? One of his friends (who was quite a cutie) was trying to holler at me. Took me a minute to figure that out, I thought we were all just being friendly, but it was a great conversation and outcome - we exchanged info and promised to keep in touch.

I say all of this to say, I learned 2 great lessons this weekend. One, be adventurous! If my girl hadn't stepped out on a limb, she wouldn't have met an attractive, seemingly smart and interesting guy in a new city or got her girl a little action to boot. (Holla!) And two, everyone should try this scenario! For you online daters out there, set up a group outing with your potential boo. It takes a bit of the edge off of you in case the two of you turn out to be more friend-compatible than lovemates AND you can hook up your girls while you're at it!

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