My mother is one of a kind and she made sure I will never forget that. I went home to visit my family for the first time in almost two months over the weekend. Being home is always bittersweet. It is the place where I feel the most comfortable pooping, which is always nice. However, my room has become a depository for my family's junk, my bed almost completely submerged in my sister's old toys.
For this reason, I often take naps on one of the couches or in my sister's bed when she's not using it. While napping, my mother entered my sister's room and sat on the bed. I could tell that she missed me and wanted to catch up. While naptime is sacred to me, I could tell that this was the time my mother selected for piercing questions into my life.
She asked me about work, and if I liked my roommates, all leading up to asking about my love life.
"Are you seeing anyone?"
"No."
"Is there anyone you're interested in?"
"Not really?"
"What kind of girls are you into?"
"Uhh..."
"Do you want me to make you a Christian Mingle account?"
"Sure, mom," I chuckled. I get my sense of humor from her.
Then she sprang out of bed like Lazarus coming back to life and sat down at the family computer. Apparently she wasn't joking. In an effort to help her son find a worthy mate, she set out to making him a dating profile on a site with the most awkward ad campaigns for any dating service I've ever seen. I knew I couldn't stop her so I decided to just let it happen.
It is important to note, that while I can't speak for my mother's spirituality, she doesn't attend church regularly, she just knows I do. So she chose Christian Mingle above the other dating sites because of my faith and because she doesn't want me to "bring home no hoe."
My mom asking for help made it weird. She got stuck just trying to make an account. Ultimately I wanted this to be her project; I didn't want the blood on my hands. Unfortunately, she called me back into the room every few minutes to assist her. I taught her how to download pictures from my Facebook page and she browsed through them to choose her favorite ones. It occurred to me that my mom was essentially sourcing the photos she herself would be attracted to if she were looking to date someone, which is an uncomfortable thought, to say the least.
It interested me to see what kind of things she wrote about me. According to the profile she made, I grew up Pentecostal, the branch of Christianity that is known for speaking in tongues and other eccentricities. These details about my upbringing are news to me. She also said that I was into bike riding. I haven't ridden a bike since high school.
As I read the finished page I realized that my mother crafted one of the most generic dating profiles I've ever seen. She stuffed every section with cliché lines about what it means to be a "man of God" as if she was copy and pasting them straight out of a New Believers pamphlet. Even the username she selected is endearing yet cringeworthy: LiveLovePray2020. One of the first sentences says that I work hard during the week, but like to hang out on weekends. Not only does that make me sound like the most boring person on the planet, but it reveals a lot about what my mother thinks about me.
Perhaps the profile she wrote is so bland because she doesn't know me very well. Maybe she doesn't know me very well because our relationship isn't as strong as it could be. Maybe instead of getting coffee with one of these God-fearing women my mom is trying to set me up with, I should instead I should sit down and treat my mom to coffee. Many of our conversations turn into bickering which often causes me to shut down about the more personal aspects of my life. But my mom loves me so much that she would spend a Saturday afternoon making a Christian Mingle profile for me, so I should make a better effort to mingle with her more often.
