A lack of planning

I went to a party in the city last night. My philosophy the past year has been to try and attend parties I've invited too just to put myself out there and work on socializing. The crowd was primarily Asian being that it was a celebration party for K. Originally, it was supposed to be an auction for charity with the winner getting a date with K. I heard from a friend that it got cancelled. Too bad, it would have been fun to see crazy girls bidding for him.

Over the few hours I was there, I mostly danced and chatted with friends. There were a lot of dolled up women there. I couldn't help but think that there are so many levels on which I can't compete with many of them. Ignoring the fact there younger, there still the question of height and genes. Some of them will always look more attractive, with or without makeup. I just don't have the bones. Besides that, I looked at all the men. I felt like I could have recognized many of them from the online dating websites I've browsed over the years. I wanted to convince myself that most of these guys could be nice to meet. Alas, a club is a difficult place to get to know anyone, but it's an interesting place to people watch.

It is no surprise to report that I have not thought much about dating over the holidays. Sure, the idea has run through my mind from time to time, but I did not delve deep and look inside myself. What was I looking for you might ask?

1) Are you ready to give online dating your full attention?
Considering I'm about to plunk down some money, probably. But then there are plenty of people who have gym memberships and never go.

2) Do you know what to look for in profiles?
I don't want to be too picky. I don't want to be judging. I need to start somewhere otherwise I'll go crazy trying to exchange e-mails with all these guys. Help!

I signed back up for a dating website to browse and to warm up to the idea again. Over the past few days, I have looked at the profiles of several guys who are "compatible" with me. While there may be a statement or two that is unique, honestly, the rest of it all seem like trite, packaged descriptors that could fit any man walking down the street - intelligent, adventurous, friendly, dependable, sense of humor, work/life balance, travel, easy-going, etc. I feel like a palette of paint colors has been poured into a bucket and stirred. They all look pleasing when they stand alone, but the whole things turns into a mucky brown soup once they mix together.

They all sound like decent guys, but we know they can't all be. Why would they be single if they're all so great? I honestly have no clue how to filter people. It's such a random process.

Here are two people I'm already ready to chuck...

- In response to a question about the last book he read Engineer wrote, "Most of my reading are technical book dealing with work." One, that's just boring, and two, his grammar sucks.

- Golfer chose some questions for me to answer. One asks what number of children would be ideal to me. That answer seems so transient - ask me after I've had the first one. The second one is, "If I had a bad day, what would you do for me?" At first, it sounded totally normal. Then, part of me thought, "hey, are you expecting me to bring you slippers and have a hot dinner waiting every night?" I know this is all part of the process at this website, but these questions just seem... a bit early to be asking.

So my question is what are clear signs that should set off alarms for me and what are inconsequential remarks that I should not hold against these guys?

Gawd, I suck at this whole dating thing.