MUST LOVE CAT

last night as i gave a friend some advice about his misadventures in online dating, i began to think about the online dating profile.

when it comes to finding your perfect match electronically, the profile is everything. it's more important than the first date or the first kiss. it is your first impression, and you get to make only one before a potential lover quickly decides whether to navigate away or to message you. because of its immeasurable impact, the online dating profile is very difficult and time-consuming to create.

we put out there on the internets these versions of ourselves that we think will be attractive, and not too terribly misleading, to the kind of people we want to meet. when joining a dating site, each of us becomes our own personal public relations agent. but if we were to be perfectly honest, i think our profiles would look a lot different.

for example, if i were looking for my future husband and putting no PR spin on my profile, it would probably start out with:

MUST LOVE CAT

kinda like that movie Must Love Dogs, which stars one of my faves, Diane Lane, but which somehow i've never seen. notice, however, that my profile would read not "Must Love CatS" but "Must Love Cat." only one cat: my cat. mon chat noir, for you Spanish-speakers out there.

if i find a guy who loves my asshole demon of a cat as much as i do, i will marry him and give him my ATM pin and even forgive horrible boyfriend sins like wearing shoes in the living room, or dropping minute crumbs on the sofa while i'm watching him eat, or throwing inside-out socks into the laundry. (an aside: i'm no laundry nazi, but socks have to be turned right-side-out eventually, and I'M usually the one who does it when i'm folding those clothes!!! just do it when you take them off, potential future boyfriend!! ). i don't know how any guy could resist me...

as i was saying, MUST LOVE CAT. my atticus is a dream; to the outside observer, however, he seems like a nightmare. maybe because if you're nice to him, he will bite you. alternatively, if you ignore him, he might bite you. and if you try to walk through a doorway while he's lying therein, or near there, he might bite you. he has back claws that he knows are extremely sharp, and he kicks like Chuck Norris. i'm currently healing from one of his very innocent kicks, the wound from which caused people at a party last week to question whether i'm a cutter. this looks so much better than it did two weeks ago:


my Atticus is moody, unpredictable, aggressive, and unlike any cat i've ever met. and i love him. he's the most beautiful thing i own, and i often laugh out loud at his ridiculousness. i don't care if he's crazy. he sleeps on my legs when it's cold, and he bites me through the blankets if i twitch. like a faithful lapdog, he always sits beside me when i read and when i blog. except he gives me the side eye every time i move or selfishly breathe too loudly, disrupting his nap:


basically, i think he's heaven, even when he acts like Satan. if only i could meet a man with a sense of humor who agrees.

and that's what my really honest dating profile might say. i can't help but wonder what kind of guy would respond positively to that.


actually... i probably don't want to find out.