I don’t know him but he poked me on facebook.  How he found my profile I’ll never know because as I do recall, it’s hidden, except to friends.

Facebook, FAIL.  Since we don’t share any friends in common, my paranoid brain is considering that perhaps he’s some sort of cyber-stalker-hacker.

“well was he cute??J”, my friend P asked when I mentioned the “poker” on Facebook.

Yes.  I suppose.  But that’s not the point!  How is “poking” me a good introduction?  But it’s not just men, I’ve had women do it do.  Poking a good friend is one thing — it can be hilarious — but poking a stranger?  Ew.  Besides, the official Facebook poking rules don’t seem to have anything to do with dating.

I stopped online dating last February after a slew of nightmare dates including a couple of liars and a runner.  I used to meet some really nice, relationship-minded men online but in the last year and a half, the quality has definitely slipped.  I’m not alone in noticing this.  Many of my friends — gorgeous, intelligent and successful women — just don’t bother any more because it seems the main objective for men who date online is casual sex.

(Note to douchebags:  Women who post that they’re looking for a “relationship”, are looking for a relationship.  Keep your parts to yourself.)

“They’re just looking for sex,” a woman I know, who has never dated online, but who has several male friends that do, assured me. Although at the time I thought she was dippy and old-fashioned and worried about posting a picture with “a few extra pounds”, now I’m pretty sure she was on to something.

When I took myself offline and decided that from “now on”, I was going to meet him in person, I forgot about one of the few disadvantages of being a solopreneur.  I work from home and when I do leave my apartment, it’s to go to Starbucks or the drycleaners or Trader Joe’s, without make-up, in very bad clothes or to travel to another state, where anyone I do meet shall there remain when I travel back to Socal.

So the slightly bored, not-dating part of me is thinking that since the mountain came to Mohammed, maybe I should just “poke” him back?  What do you think?  Also, where do you go to meet men if you’re not dating online?