Boxes

I don't like to think people can put me in a box; that they can look at the sum of me, and decide - OK - that's who Mark is.
In a way, although many people have tried to do this, I've always sought to have some type of balance in everything I do, a good example of this being my eclectic taste in music.
Last week it slowly dawned on me that I might be slipping into a demographic, without even recognising it; all this because about 8 months ago I joined a local dating website.

I joined match.com basically as a way of meeting new people. I have a lot of friends here in Auckland now and I love them all to death, but it's fair to say that the group I have been mixing in is now quite settled, and meeting new people is difficult. One of our group,Jen summed it up best when she said that she would like to meet someone when she was most happily being herself. Her idea was; when someone saw you being happy in your life/work/self, they would be more likely to like you for the same reasons you liked yourself. For that reason she always believed that she was more likely to find someone through a less immediate social contact than Internet dating. I have to say - I agree wholeheartedly; but after some needling from others I gave it a go anyway. I hate it.

Still, I have met some nice people online. Recently, however, I have backed off the whole Internet dating scene - simply because I've had a lot of other things on. The other day however, I received an interesting email from a girl from Wellington, who worked in the Financial sector.

I emailed her back, but I was a bit suspicious. I actually emailed her profile to another friend to see what she thought. The next day another email popped into my mailbox, telling me about herself, and that she was a child psychologist. I pretty much knew something was up - I mean how many child psychologists work in the financial sector? I wrote back, and giving her the benefit of the doubt, asking her if she was actually in Wellington. Nope - you guessed it - she was from one of the Baltic States.

In some ways I was conflicted about how to proceed with this. Perhaps this was a genuine person, who is attractive, and bright, with a University degree, just trying to make a better life for herself?
My cynical self though it more likely the emailer was a 56-ish year old man with a bevy of photographs of young women, waiting for his next Western Union transfer from some poor idiot somewhere else in the world that just wants to get laid.
Regardless - I'm not even interested in dating someone in another city - let alone another country, so I guess I'll pull the plug either way. Who would have though someone would have profiled me for this sort of bullshit?

It's weird, but a part of me hopes she isn't "real" - so because of this I guess you can put me in the "Sap box" then :)