The Date:

When I walked into the Internet gaming cafe that I'd tricked Brooklyn into coming to, my heart skipped a beat. It does that sometimes. The doctors are baffled as to why, exactly, and my explanation -- that I'd taught my own heart to beat to the tune of Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer" -- did nothing to assuage their worries. Luckily, my lack of health insurance did that instead. When the blackness that forever lives at the edges of my vision receded, I saw an angel standing uncertainly between two chubby Koreans swearing at computer screens.

"I like my coffee like I like my women," I said, sidling up to her.

"I don't like where this is going," she answered instantly. God, she was sharp. She saw it coming early, and if her ass kept bouncing around nervously like that, she'd see something else coming early soon enough.

"Full of my own semen," I suavely finished.

"Yep. That was it," Brooklyn answered, then stomped her way out of the double doors at GameBryoz, and my heart, forever.

Conclusions:

That was weird. That went exactly like every other date I've ever had with a normal. Are these "Internetizens" just as shockingly prude and standards-having as real people? No, no surely that can't be the case. I've seen the Internet. It's terrible. So it might just be this particular site; sure, it's the biggest, but maybe it's like the Playboy to hardcore pornography. And just like porn, I'm probably going to have to go to some weird, shameful, possibly illegal places before I get my rocks off. Somewhere like ...

The Date:

"Did it hurt?" I asked Sandra when I first met her in the window booth at the Chuck E. Cheese's on 92nd. She'd agreed to the location in part because, no matter how the date went, it would at least make for a nice outing for her many, many stupid, stupid children, and in part because I'd offered to "make it rain in that bitch."

Right off the bat, I could see she looked nothing like her picture. She was a bit on the chubby side, and looked like somebody had rode Daryl Hannah hard, put her away wet and then hit her with a taser. The ass of her pants insisted that their contents were "Juicy," and I had no cause to doubt the veracity of that statement. I suspected she may have just pasted a stock photo model into a fake online dating profile. What kind of sociopath does that?

"Did what hurt?" she asked, without glancing up from her keypad. I stole a peek down at the screen. It was all rapidly cascading text, like hacking into the Matrix, but instead of code it was just the words "LOL" over and over again, repeating to infinity.

Looking back, I don't actually recall there being a recipient.

"When you fell from Heaven," I continued, with suavity.

At that, she finally tore her eyes from the pseudo-binary of endless LOLOL-ing, and flashed me a timid smile ... which broke the second I finished my sentence: "Surely, the G-forces from a fall like that would've shattered your femurs, at the least; it might explain why you walk like you do. It's like you've got rickets

and hemorrhoids, like John Wayne with anal fissures, like you're trying to straddle a cact-"

She got up to leave, and I panicked a little.

"MONEY!" I shouted, whipping open my wallet.

She paused at the door and turned hesitantly back toward me.

"You want a provider, right? Check this shit out," I said proudly, thumbing through the thick wad of bills.

Her eyes went wide and a saucy little string of drool chased its way across her jowl (like, literally, though -- it was tinged with some kind of sauce). But when she got a closer look, she too scoffed, and turned to leave me.

"Those are Chuck E. Dollars! You can spend those on ANYTHING!" I cried. "Anything in the case! They got whistles and tiny combs and pewter skull rings and I think I saw some Gak in there!"

But it was too late. She was gone, and with her went a piece of my heart, plus I think she took my sunglasses too.

Conclusions:

Something still wasn't right. I just wasn't finding the kind of amoral psychopathy that I'm accustomed to on the Internet. I wanted the kind of girl that wouldn't just be a lover, but an accomplice. The kind of girl that that would help you steal a wheelchair from a Goodwill because you twisted an ankle and it's a long way to the bus (but mostly because chair-wheelies are the funnest). The kind of girl who would love you -- not in spite of your compassionless resentment for everybody that's not you, but

because of it.

Sandra wasn't that girl, but I think I knew where to find her ...

The Date:

Kaitlyn brought a wolf for me to fight, and refused to speak to me until I'd bested it in battle.

I did so, easily. Because there are three things that I'm the tits at: Barbecuing, Mega Man 2 and finding lupine pressure points.

I thought we'd mack a little after that, but she just laugh-cried manically over the wolf corpse until her face turned purple. Also, she was driving an Aztek and that's literally my only deal breaker.

Conclusions:

So the normals wanted safety, the whores wanted real money and the objectivists wanted to have their Wolf Duels and their living wolves, too. It seems like the main problem with dating these days is that everybody wants something. So what about the man who has nothing to offer? What about the man who has nothing valuable to contribute, say, think or do? Where is his place on the Internet?

The Date:

"I'll admit it, Terry, I thought you were going to be a woman. I know, I know: I really should've nailed this down before agreeing to the date, but I guess I just figured that, since I didn't understand you, you had to be female."

"RT IS THE WAY TO BE," he spouted, with that same unfocused, glass-eyed stare he'd had since I found him wandering the park outside the pizza place where we agreed to meet.

"I mean, listen, you've got girlish cheekbones and I've got whiskey, so I'm not saying that's a deal breaker. But you have to look at me before we do it. You have to look at me in the eyes, Terry. I'm not a whore."

But he couldn't seem to keep eye contact; he just kept screaming the names of websites at squirrels.

"YOUR BRAND IS YOU: BRAND YOURSELF," he screeched, tearing open his shirt and revealing a series of painful decals burned into his flesh. I recognized the Virgin Airlines and Skechers logos emblazoned beneath each nipple, but the rest were unfamiliar, and I didn't feel like they engaged me socially, so I didn't pay any attention to them.

When I left Terry, he was clawing keywords into the bark of a tree with his bloody fingertips.

VIDEO GAMES, the trunk read: SEX SALVIA CALL OF DUTY CHARLIE SHEEN POT MARIJUANA BARELY LEGAL SKYRIM.

Conclusions:

To my amazement, I'd actually found a dating site that was beneath me. If you'd told me that was possible a few days ago, I would've spit in your face and stole your car, because that's what I do to liars and people with faces and cars. But here I stand, too socially inept for Match, too poor for Sugar Daddy For Me, too brutal for the Atlasphere and (inexplicably) too literate for Twitter Date. So what happens to people like me? Is there nowhere on the Internet for a man to meet like-minded people with no morals, no potential and very little concern for their own well-being or the well-being of others?

Oh. Shit. Oh, no. There is a place like that. A dark and abyssal place, which I'd swore to never tread again ...

The Date:

Surprisingly, the date with Jennifer went swimmingly. You would've loved her. We discussed all the things you like at length, and none of the things that you don't. I found her to be intelligent, sexy, successful, generous, giving and above all, absolutely not a first-world dental pirate. We shared scintillating conversation, fine wines and a night of passionate love making doing all those positions you want to do but haven't done yet. What we did not share was a plan to trick perverts with good dental hygiene into the alleyway off of Ocean Street in order to dose them with Nitrous Oxide and pull their canines out to sell to Chinese men with erectile dysfunction. That is a ridiculous assumption, and I really don't understand why people keep saying it.

Conclusions:

Sadly, I had to break it off with Jennifer, because she was just too damn nubile and willing to experiment for me (she had some really nice things to say about you, though; you should definitely not call her at all before you agree to meet at that new club without a name that you can't find on Google Maps).

So it looks like this whole online dating didn't pan out.

I guess that's ultimately because, when you get right down to it, dating is all about connecting with another person, empathizing with their troubles and learning to care about them as a human being. And every single one of those things is the exact opposite of everybody on the Internet.

Although, really, it's probably because my wife found out about it.

You can buy Robert's book, Everything is Going to Kill Everybody: The Terrifyingly Real Ways the World Wants You Dead, or follow him on Twitter, Facebook and Google+. Or you could go visit the Atlasphere instead, and try to sneak Bioshock-themed profiles past the moderators there. That sounds like way more fun.

For more from Robert, check out The 5 Least Sexy Products Money Can Buy=One Terrifying Date and 5 Steps to Having The Most Badass Funeral Ever.