On Friday night, I found myself in a sharing circle.  Actually, it was a birthday party.  We happened to be sitting in a circle and sharing.  It was much more fun than it may sound.  We had pizza. At some point, the circle splintered into smaller groups.  I talked to an artist for a while; we gabbed about nonprofits, art, all sorts of stuff.  A few feet away, three guys and one girl talked about online dating.  They shared a few horror stories, whipped out their cell phones that had a mobile dating app installed.  Compared profiles, checked to see if anyone interesting was in the area. As they talked, the three guys, in subtle and less subtle ways, vyed for the one girl’s attention.  Subtle shifts in body position, laughing a little too loudly, invitations to future cultural events.  She was attractive, can’t blame the guys.  Anyway, I watched all this happening and realized at some point that I was happier talking about a van that doubles as a pinhole camera (awesome!) than about dating. A year ago, I might have participated in the dating story-share.  Hell, that was kind of my thing.  I’d go to parties and people would be all, like, “Hey, Kass, tell us about that time you did that thing with that girl that involved the sex!”  And I’d tell tales, sometimes a bit grotesque, about various misadventures, the lengths to which I may have gone to grab a few minutes of empty pleasure, moments of unexpected vulnerability in the midst of tawdry assignations.  I’d cloak myself in these stories, assuming the identity of the weathered, bitter veteran of the Dating Wars, holding myself up as an example of singlehood in LA.  Assuming that folks were looking for a...

Frankie Asks… Would You Date ME If I Wrote That?? In my quest for the perfect man (or just any man that will stick around really – yea, I’m that desperate), I’ve been online dating for about a year now. We’ve all heard the horror stories – the ‘date that looks nothing like their picture’ story, the ‘creepy date who confesses their love on first date’ story, the silent date, the date that won’t shut up, the no show. Yes, I’d say (from no actual statistical knowledge whatsoever) that about 75 percent of 21-35 year olds have told the above stories to their eager and smug attached friends a few times at least. I have. But I’m going to give you a little window into the the pre-dating online dating situation: the Internet pick-up line. It’s wondrous simplicity and cave man-like attributes; it’s undeniable hilarity and bottom of the food chain attractiveness. Below are some stunning examples of messages I’ve received off of plentyoffish.com. Now maybe it’s my fault for using a free site, or maybe, just maybe, the dating pool is about 95 percent full of imbeciles. (All grammatical errors have been kept for posterity) “You are the gilfriend I always want it. I would like to date you. Lets go out on a date.” Tempting, because I know that he knows I’m exactly what he was looking for – based on my six profile pictures and 200-word essay about what I want in a guy. “lol your mom is pretty stylish” One of my pictures has my mother in it. Astute dude for picking up on that, but I’m pretty sure he got his dating skills from his incestuous step father. Sad story… “how r u? i’m 26 army guy , i...