Oh, Valentine’s Day! It’s definitely not my favorite day of the year, but it’s not my least favorite either.  Sure, I’m 39 and single, and everyone assumes I should be bitter and angry. But I’m not!  I LOVE love, and I especially love the beginning of love. I love being in a new relationship. I love feeling giddy and stupid over a guy. I love the butterflies, the electricity of holding hands, the first kiss…

And while I love love, online dating can suck it. Online dating is the WORST.  It’s worse than oversleeping, war, or having your cat attack your feet under the sheets in the middle of the night. It’s much, much worse than Miley Cyrus doing Paul Simon on the SNL reunion.

There are several reasons why online dating can S my D, but mostly because of the ghosting. Apparently it’s completely acceptable — once you’ve had enough of someone — to just cease all communication.  One day, you’re texting and flirting, and you’re talking about when to meet up.  The next day you don’t hear from him.  You send a cute message with no response. Silence the next day.  Gurl, you been ghosted. The struggle is real and it sucks and it messes with your emotions.

Here are clowns who have ghosted me, all of whom I never met in person.  It was the dreaded pre-date slow fade.

DC Fella:  His profile picture was absolutely adorable.  Seersucker suit, bow tie and fedora. We talked for about a month via text.  We kept talking about meeting up, but he never answered my invites. He told me his actual name, and when I found out we had a mutual friend in common on Facebook, I asked her what she thought.  She said he was awesome, I told him so, and he told me that was some “serious recon shit” and then ghosted me.  A few weeks later, really late at night, he sent me a picture of his pants and asked me if I was awake.  I was not.

Dr. Leo Marvin:  On his profile under “last book you read”, he put “Baby Steps” by Dr. Leo Marvin.  You either get the What About Bob reference right away and fall in love, or you don’t.  I did; it caused me to LOL, so I messaged him.  We texted for a few months. (Yes, I said months.)  He presented me a wide assortment of random facts including that his dog died and that he had been in a polyamorous relationship.  When he told me his name was Adam instead of Rich, I realized he had been lying to me all along.  What a horrible person to lie about a dead dog!! When I asked him why he said his name was both Rich and Adam, I never heard from him again. Until a few weeks later, when he texted at 3:12am and asked what I was doing.  I deleted him from my phone the next morning.

Shittsburg Joel: This one is the one that is the most sad for me, because I really liked this guy.  Let me say this:  if I could only date men in a one or two mile radius, I would.  My opinion is that the Virginia suburbs is where fun goes to die, and don’t even get me started about Maryland.  Obviously Pittsburg is way outside of my available date radius, but his profile was funny and smart, for which I am a sucker. We talked for about six weeks at the end of the summer, including two video chats. We texted several times a day.  And then one day lead to two days and then all of a sudden, I realized I had been ghosted. In December, he texted me out of the blue saying he had had a “difficult autumn.” I was not that jazzed about hearing from him, but we texted a bit more.  After a few days of not hearing from him, I called him out — did I just get ghosted twice?  “I thought you weren’t interested.”  We talked some more, and then I got ghosted FOR THE THIRD TIME BY THE SAME GUY.  See for yourself:

Sane and Well Adjusted Evan:  His profile indicated he was an intelligent, mildly funny “consultant” who tried to separate himself from the rest of the knuckleheads by saying he was “sane and well-adjusted”. I fell for it.  He was a Wharton boy.  We chatted for a few weeks before he started crossing over into sexting, and then just evaporated.

Englishman Rich:  You know I love an accent, and since my bestie’s husband is a proper Englishman American citizen with an awesome accent, I had all these fantasies about us ending up with handsome British dudes.  Englishman Rich and I texted and emailed a few weeks before I got ghosted. And then a few weeks later, I got a text from him, “Hey, we forgot to go out!”  No, we didn’t. You’re a D.

Bad Hair Brandon: This was the closest I came to actually going on a date.  That Tuesday, I had to be in Dupont Circle at 7:30.  Around 3 that day, I suggested we meet at 6 the coffee shop of his choice in Dupont.  At 5:45, I still had heard nothing.  I actually never heard anything from him until three weeks later when he asked me if I wanted to go get coffee.  Stood up and ghosted — the rope-a-dope of Match.com.

So yeah, I know online dating is amazing and that there are a million couples who can credit this for bringing them together. I want it to work for me, which is why I keep signing up.  But for the next few months, I’m taking a break from online dating.  And when I sign up again, I’m gonna need less texting, more dating, and maybe more Jake Gyllenhaal.