Twittering Single

Twitterin’ (heeey) sing-le

Oooh, In a 1-0 kind of world

I’m  glad I’ve got Twit-ter!

Confession: My Twitter feed is fairly one-note. There’s a spectrum certainly, but even that spectrum falls under the category of “Stuff I’ll tolerate reading 140-characters at a time.” Thus, I don’t have too many people who are, in my opinion, batshit crazy and perpetually insufferable. I once referred to Twitter as the college dining hall for grown-ups and that still applies. The people whom I follow are people who I would sit at a table and shoot the shit with.

Having met a good number of the people whom I follow, I have yet to walk away from an encounter completely surprised by the person behind the @ handle. That’s the beauty of Twitter in my experience: People pretty much are what they tweet. In fact, most of the people I’ve met are even better than what they tweet; they’re full-formed people who get to express themselves with more than 140-characters and have the added benefit of voice, tone, inflection and all the other things that make human-to-human interaction still the best way to communicate.

Again; I like the people who sit at my Twitter table.

I have to imagine I’m not unique in that regard; I like to think that the people who make up someone’s core Twitter feed are people that they like and find interesting. Sure; there are die-hard these people who follow die-hard those people in order to stay up on what the other side is thinking and to put shoes in one another from time to time, but I suspect these people who aren’t like-minded and who go that hard in that way rarely want meet each other in a congenial fashion.

They’re sharing a dining hall, but not a table.

I am befuddled by one aspect of the Twitter landscape and, as an outside observer, felt compelled to puzzle over it openly. There is a constant irony that I can’t quite wrap my head around:

Like-minded, decent, intelligent, funny, potentially likable people dialogue with other like-minded, decent, intelligent, funny, potentially likable people about the dearth of like-minded, decent, intelligent, funny, potentially likable people to link up with romantically.

I’m not throwing shade here, but if you want to believe I am, just know said shade is being thrown in all directions without prejudice.

Another confession: I can’t speak to how much people are attempting to link up, though my casual conversation leads me to believe it could be something done with more frequency.

As an observer, I have to admit to being completely befuddled by this. People are drawn together–attracted–by their common interests, causes, points of conversation and get to know each other. Ideas, conversations, debate, meetings of the minds flying this way and that…I’m of the opinion personality and brains are what keep people coming back in healthy relationships, and there’s a whole lot of personality and brains flying around the place.

(Yes; sexual attraction is key as well, but its ability to sustain a relationship is dubious at best and to even open up the sexual discussion requires an effort by one party or the other that’s more involved than a racy direct message).

All of this takes place in–please spare me the irony–a fairly organic and safe environment.  Anyone trying to get their respective dick or vajayjay wet is outed as utterly wack in short order. Again, people’s personalities, for better or ill, come through on Twitter; their potential is on display for pretty much all to see.

Is it foolproof? No; but I have yet to see anything that’s foolproof in the dating game.

I find myself often wondering: Are these people talking to each other?

As I mentioned early, I’ve met up with quite a few characters from Twitter solely on the strength of their tweets. Sure; I felt a bit odd at first, but that’s what unlimited mimosa brunches are for. More often than not, I walked away thinking that @_____ was even better in real life and is a person worth knowing. I can say without shame that, were I single, I would most assuredly holler and fully admit where the hollering took place.

Perhaps my Cool meter is jacked up and maybe I have a warped perception of what dating and relationships constitute, but it  seems to boil down to this: A companion who improves you (and who you improve) with whom you have a sexual relationship. Liking/loving this person is preferred. How you met this person is, generally, of little to no relevance.

On more than one occasion, I’ve perused my Twitter table and thought to myself: Somebody is missing out on a good catch here.

What am I missing?

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