Am I ready to date?

Two posts in one day, decided to split the topics.
So, Nerdboy is still on the fringes of my life, although I'm trying to ignore him.  That's in the previous post.  This one concerns a decision.

I have an online dating account open on OKCupid.
I had a bit of a crush on someone's profile,  from a city two hours away, but didn't write because it seemed impractical to meet.  Meanwhile, a chubby photographer messaged me ( I often search for people who list 'environment' as an interest.  His profile mentions 'a safe environment' and I kept forgetting.  So he saw that I had visited more than once and got excited)  and that conversation has been going for two weeks.  I'm not particularly interested but I have no reason to reject him.  I think he would have asked to meet me already but my grandfather died and he's being respectful of that.

So then Faraway Crush closed his account, and Photographer didn't message for a few days, and I panicked or something and sent my first message to someone else, who we will call Silver Fox.
(So, so cute).  And he wrote back the next day and said he was back with his ex but was open to talking as friends.  So I wrote something back to be polite, and he wrote back a fairly chatty message.  Turns out we have two arts organizations in common, not sure how we hadn't already met.  And I wrote back again, and he didn't answer all week.  I was not surprised.  I was a little uncomfortable that he still had a dating profile up while in the tender stages of reconciliation  He did edit it to say he was unavailable, I guess he didn't know how to change the setting to 'seeing someone' instead of 'single'.

And then yesterday I got a message from Silver Fox saying, this is a drag, you seem interesting, but my girlfriend wants me to close my account.  She's okay with me messaging people, just not through OKC.  Here's my email and Twitter.

Why are boys so dumb?  SO, SO DUMB.

Anyways, we follow each other on Twitter now and I have fantasies about his relationship not working out and me stepping in....Not really though.  I want somebody's second chance to work, even if mine didn't.

So.
I haven't heard from Photographer in a few days.
No one else is messaging me.

Either I close the account or I start messaging some people.

I really want to date again.  Even though dating is the seventh level of hell.

But I have no place to live, no steady job, want to lose 5 more pounds...want to be more dateable first.

I don't know.
I check OKC obsessively.
The two profiles I most like are in two different cities, both about 100 km away.  One is across the border in the USA!
Am I picking unobtainable people on purpose?

I really really really want someone who cares about the environment and I'm surprised there's only a small handful, maybe 30 men in a 100 mile radius.  It really narrows the dating pool.

How do i meet fellow greenies in real life?