Part 1 of Miss Single's Online Experiences was published way back in April. Here, finally, is Part 2.

First and foremost, allow me to apologize for the huge delay in my posts. I’ve been out trying to suck the final breath from summer as it slowly drifts into oblivion. This is also the time of year that I make a concerted effort to eliminate all the bullshit men and utterly useless factors that my life has picked up. It’s the time of year that I try to return back to some semblance of my actual self and find the source of who I really am. Mental and emotional housecleaning – I recommend it to all the singles out there. It’s a great way to rid yourself of all the baggage that you took on whilst you were too drunk with the glories of summer (or even last summer) to notice much of anything.

Fall (or at least, Post-Labor Day Summer) is also the perfect time for your body to get all frustrated and depressed if you’re single because the summer romance that you had planned on didn’t quite work out the way that you had originally planned. If you’re in this slump, I’m here to try to snap you out of it. Come on, ride with me on the Angel of Optimism bandwagon.

As many of you will remember from my last post, I had answered one of those creepy posts on craigslist from a guy advertising for a girl specifically to go down on. Nothing came from it, but it dawned on me that there’s a whole culture out there that relies on internet dating and personals for dates and relationships and that this is a culture that I’ve never fully understood. Yes, I realize that most of those posts on the online personals are for spam or are crazy ugly men. As a sex columnist though, I felt that I knew nothing about this highly popular means of hooking up. So, I decided to jump full on into the cesspool of internet and online dating. I had just finished reading Michael Beaumier’s new book I Know You’re Out There… and I felt fully prepared for a learning experience with online “dating.”

The dedicated readers will remember reading one of my first posts about the debacle that was my internet dating experiences. For some ridiculous reason, I felt the need to give it another go. Maybe there had been an evolution in the kinds of people who use these sites to seek out dates. It had been years since I had even checked out any of theses sites. Maybe I’d be able to set up a hot rendezvous with a hot, hot stranger. Maybe… just maybe…

Alas, what I learned is that the people who use these sites are either short, socially inept, or Asian… or all three.

My experiment began by spending one week answering different ads on craigslist for men seeking women. Only one seemed cool enough to meet, but when we met in person, he just kind of creeped me out. The rest either dropped off the face of the earth after a couple of e-mails or I realized that they were just schmucks with bad attitudes… or they were just really skinny and short.

The following week, I posted one ad every day for myself – each one with a different theme – and I received a variety of responses. Half I posted described myself physically and focused mainly on one of my physical attributes. These were the ads that generated the biggest response and actually the only man that I went on a real date with was part of this group. The remaining posts were more specific – looking for a date to a gallery opening, trying to find someone to cook with and explore the sensuality of food – but these generated much lower responses. Unfortunately, I couldn’t bring myself to actually be attracted to any of these guys – even the nice guy from the date. Maybe I was just too sober.

From what I can gather in my two weeks of internet personals, people tend to turn to these services when they are bored with their life. The people searching for dates are looking for something more. I, on the other hand, am a gregarious person and this just can’t be communicated via the internet without sounding too flaky, fat or freaky (and not in a good way). Maybe I am all these things in some ways (minus the fat thing) but at least I know who I am and what makes me happy. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I’m stuck in a singles rut where no one really looks very attractive to me (except those that shouldn’t – like the guy with the tattoo on his chest and boa crawling on his arms or the guy who sent me a torso photo of him in his whitie tighties with a hard on). And this experiment just helped dig me deeper into this rut - so deep that I didn’t even feel like heading to the German bar to flirt with the cute novelist/bartender. My conclusion based on my little experiment – internet personals are to be avoided at all costs in order to maintain some semblance of personal sanity.

What I believe us singles need to realize is that even though we get down sometimes from the constant barrage of friends weddings is that we actually have it pretty well. We have freedom. Freedom to flirt with whomever we want in whatever medium we want. And before I start singing George Michael songs, will someone please shoot that stupid Angel of Optimism? She’s really starting to get on my final single nerve…

(As an aside – if you think that I’m totally off base with this, please let me know. If you’ve had good experiences with internet dating (specifically with online personals), I’d love to hear about it. If I receive a high enough response, I’ll dedicate my next column to all of you freaks and geeks who have found love in the bowels of the internet. I promise. Single’s honor.)

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