A few days later, Mr. Esoteric checks out my profile again, and sends a simple message, asking how my week is going. It’s a couple of days before the Seahawks are playing in the Superbowl, which is all anyone in Seattle can talk about, so I ask if he’s watching the game or ignoring the hoopla.

I assume he’s ignoring the hoopla, because his profile says he’s not very into sports, except baseball. He prefers indie films and non-mainstream music.

He replies: Oh I’ve been a diehard New England Patriots fan since 1974 and a diehard Seattle Seahawks fan since 1976. I’ve been waiting for this Super Bowl for 38 years.

Perhaps he’s not that into football and other sports on a relative basis – Seahawks mania is at a fever pitch just before the Superbowl, could he mean he’s not that into sports relative to people like my neighbors, who shoot off fireworks that scare my dog every time the Seahawks score?

I’m confused, I say, and point him to his profile.

He replies: I guess it’s time to add a caveat to that.

I stop replying.

Mr. Esoteric has looked through my pictures, and found one of me giving a lecture at a local historical society. He asks, which one? and mentions he’s on the board of an area historical society.

This seems like a promising start, so I check his profile, and discover we have similar tastes. I reply with the information, and compliment his taste in poetry. I’m a big fan of T.S. Eliot too, I tell him.

He replies, a few minutes later, with a bit more historical society information, but quickly moves on to music, complimenting my taste there. He enjoys 80’s bands with cult followings, too.

He isn’t, however, a fan of one of my favorite TV shows, The Sopranos. I had to beg off the Sopranos in the episode where Janice had a gun at her head during sex, he says. That was a bit much for me.

I see his point, and have a sudden visual of the scene in question. There were many scenes in that show that might make a person uncomfortable; singling that particular one out makes me uncomfortable.

I tell him: I remember that scene. I kind of feel that way about Game of Thrones – I have to avert my eyes quite a bit. Still weirdly addictive, though. Then I change the subject, and ask him what he does for a living, since all he’s said in his profile is that he works in technology.

He replies: I haven’t seen Games of Thrones but I hear there’s a lot of rapes and murders in there which must be quite addictive as it’s a very popular show. Then he says he’s a freelance web developer and asks if my company is hiring.

He also mentions, in response to a comment I make about Ingmar Bergman movies, that he’s worn nightshirts every night since he saw Fanny & Alexander in the early 1980s.

I wonder how I’m supposed to reply to all this – with a job offer or perhaps an offer of Too Much Information. I attempt to change the subject again, but I’m running out of interest, and so is he, because he doesn’t reply again that evening.

I alternate between two modes on OKCupid: Wanting my profile to get more attention, and regretting whatever I’ve done wrong to warrant the sort of attention it does get. I decide the profile must be the problem; I dashed it off quickly and only mention being a fan of one or two tv shows, bands, and movies, that are usually described with the phrase Cult Favorite. Perhaps, I think, if I mention all my cult favorites, I’ll find other devotees. I add extra photos to show that I have friends and interests and am not slug-shaped.

It doesn’t work, and neither does paying two dollars to boost my profile in the search results. The stream of generic emails from scammers posing as long-distance loves continues, albeit at a greatly reduced pace since I’m no longer Fresh Meat. Even the scammers here disappoint me: On Match.com, they used pictures of handsome businessmen and majestic athletes. On OKCupid, they use pictures they seem to have copied and pasted at random – bathroom selfies and the visibly unemployed.

It gets to the point where I would happily wire them a small sum, just to indulge my fantasies, and that’s when it clicks: this is why people pay for Match and other sites. But having had no luck on Match in the past, I’m reluctant to try it again. I start working on a JDate profile, and immediately receive a stream of alerts from that site, exhorting me to check out various profiles – many of which are, of course, familiar from other sites.

One of them I’ve even met in person. I decide I’ll take it slow, and don’t pay for a subscription, in spite of messages that are supposedly piling up in my inbox, unread, behind the paywall.

While I fine-tune my JDate profile, OKCupid springs to life: Someone not far from me sends me an email, and though he’s not the handsomest man I’ve seen, he appears to have actually read my profile, which at this point is a win, in my book.