Online Dating Sucks

15 May 2009 · 46 comments

I know…I haven’t written anything since a couple of weeks ago so those of you who read it that I haven’t spoken to recently are probably wondering what’s going on. Let me warn you right off, this post is going to be about me venting. Nothing more, nothing less.

To begin with, I titled this “Online Dating Sucks” because…well…it does. Sucks like a big ‘ol freaking Hoover.

One of my biggest beefs with the whole process is that I feel that the online venue allows for people who might otherwise lack the social skills to enter into a dating relationship in the normal course of life. This is not to say that it always attracts socially inept individuals (case in point, myself) but it does seem to cater to them. After all, how easy is it to meet women from your hiding place behind a computer? You don’t even have to be yourself if you don’t want. No one’s going to make you be honest. No one’s going to call you out on not being true to who you really are. No one’s even going to know that the picture you posted is a 10-year-old glamor shot from the mall and doesn’t even remotely look like the non-airbrushed you who, incidentally, weighs an additional 40 pounds and no longer has hair. I’m just saying.

Again, I understand that the online thing works and has worked for a lot of people. For me however, it has yielded less-than-favorable results.

In addition to the “protection” that online dating provides, I also feel like it lends to microwaving something that really ought to be slow-cooked. You may or may not like someone within the first few seconds of meeting, but that doesn’t mean the jury should immediately render a verdict. Most recently I discovered I had an attraction to someone that I had known for months and would never have thought I’d be interested in…but getting to actually know him was what changed that. Online dating doesn’t allow for this. Instead, I think we lean towards calling the jury back prematurely rather than looking to maybe begin a friendship. Seriously, where’s the fire people? Stop running around with your hose! (No dirty pun intended) Why not calm down, relax, and enjoy the ride!

But that is not what happens.

Allow me to elaborate by sharing with you my typical online match-up experience which has gone something like this…

  • In a fit of optimism, I join eHarmony (or match.com or the like, but for the sake of this example and the fact that I’m on eHarmony right now, I’ll stick with that).
  • I see a lot of profiles and a few of which I actually like.
  • One of us reaches out through eHarmony’s “Guided Communication” process.
  • We take a few days to work our way through all of the Q&A sessions and end up finally going back and forth through site-handled email.
  • We exchange phone numbers, and then someone makes the first call.
  • We talk. It usually goes well because, let’s face it, it’s hard for a standard small-talk discussion to go badly.
  • We decide to meet up (usually sooner rather than later) for dinner/coffee/what-have-you.
  • The night of the “big date” arrives with little (if any) fanfare.
  • Afterwards, the guy typically proceeds to fall off the face of the planet…or at least they seem to.

The End.

Sometimes I’m disappointed when this happens. Most of the time I expect it. This last time out was no different. Experience has taught me not to get hopes up. That if you must be optimistic, do it with caution signs. “Danger: Potential Flaky Guy Ahead”. Yeah, you ain’t just whistling Dixie.

As I said in my previous post, I was cautiously optimistic about this last guy. On paper, he seemed great. Said all the right things, did all the right things…with gusto, I might add. In our conversations he even implied that, while we may not be each others “perfect match,” that was no reason to think that we wouldn’t still be friends, at the very least. It seemed to fit… Our interests were similar. As were our personalities. And, while I really don’t think that ending up with someone just like me would be a good idea (how would anything ever get done??), I definitely thought there was friend potential. My mistake.

We had our date last Friday night. I didn’t sense a true click (read: chemistry) like you do when you meet someone you think you could see yourself with, I still finished the night thinking, “Gee, that was fun. He’s pretty cool. I definitely see friendship” only to find after the weekend was through that he didn’t feel the same way…or at least, that’s what I assume. See, after receieving dozens of text messages and spending hours on the phone, since our outing, he has barely seen fit to respond to any communication from me. Well, whatever.

The thing that pisses me off really is that interested or not, to disappear on someone is just rude. It goes against everything your mother (hopefully) taught you about basic, polite social behavior. How about a little respect fellas? Why not at least say, “Hey, didn’t really feel a connection, but I still had a nice time hanging out with you”? What’s so difficult about that? I mean unless your dinner/coffee companion threw a drink in your face and called your mother ugly, there’s really no excuse to not at least manage a pleasant “Adios” after the date is done for the sake of closure if nothing else.

But the sad thing is that this is what I’ve come to expect because this is what happens again and again and again. If it weren’t for the fact that I have solid friends who would tell me if there was something I was doing that provoked this behavior, I might be tempted to think that it is somehow about me. Something I’m doing or not doing that’s screams “It’s okay to blow me off” to these guys.

Thankfully, I’ve also had relationships in the past that have lasted (none of which were begun online, I might add) and so I know I’m capable of being in a relationship and being a good girlfriend. I am. Promise.

Even so, since the only common denominator in these stories is me, it’s difficult to not feel like somehow I’m bringing this on myself…but how can you really know? That’s where you come in.

I’m really hoping that this post finds its way onto the computer screens of not just my extended circle of family and friends, but that some other women out there who have maybe had similar or otherwise frustrating experiences with the online dating scene and may find my thoughts resonating with them.

So please forward the link to anyone single women you know, or if you are one, I’d love to get some feedback or hear other people’s stories…and not the ones that are all about someone you know who met their husband/wife online. I’ve had enough of those. Right now I just need to know that I’m not alone…and/or crazy.

I’ve done enough venting, but thanks for listening. Now it’s time for you guys to weigh-in…please! And while you do, I’m going to sit back in a chair on my fabulous patio in the warmth of late Spring, enjoy a beer, and be thankful that I have such a great life even though there’s no man in it (online or otherwise)…yet.

Look Both Ways Before Crossing

21 April 2009 · 3 comments

“When you’re young, your whole life is about the pursuit of fun.  Then, you grow up and learn to be cautious.  You could break a bone or a heart.  You look before you leap and sometimes you don’t leap at all because there’s not always someone there to catch you.  And in life, there’s no safety net.  When did it stop being fun and start being scary?” – Carrie Bradshaw, Sex & the City

Okay, so I wanted to do a little…well…talking, I suppose.  And I didn’t want to put it out on the blog without a password because I’m not entirely sure that the guy I’m talking about hasn’t discovered this blog yet.  My plan originally was not to tell him about it, but alas I sent an email that had a link to it at the bottom (oops) and so I’m not certain that he didn’t see it and click on it thereby rendering all things posted as potentially unsafe.

[UPDATE:  Since we are now several months past this whole event, I have removed the password and changed the names to protect the innocent so I feel there's no longer any danger in making this visible to the world.]

I should probably begin by explaining how, around my birthday I had a moment of pure optimism and rejoined eHarmony for the first time in over 2 years.  I’m sure I just made Cbo’s head explode or at the very least, her skin crawl with that statement.  Honestly, I can’t say that I disagree with either of those responses.  In fact the first couple of days, the only matches I received were balding men in their late-40′s who looked for the most part like they either had a bunch of bodies hidden in the freezer, still live at home with mom & dad, or some combination of both.  However, now 3 weeks later, there have been a few thrown across my match page which actually managed to catch my attention.

Only two of them have I actually gotten all the way to emailing with so far.  One of them is 2 months out of a 4 year relationship and while I know that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s not ready for another one, he did bring up his ex twice in the first phone conversation we had prompting me to ask how long the relationship had been over for.  That doesn’t bode well and I can’t ignore the little robot inside me screaming “Danger, Will Robinson!” while waving red flags.

The other one of the two is who really intrigued me.

For the sake of privacy, I’ll just call him H.  H is 39, lives in Massachusetts, and has lived a very VERY interesting existence up to this point.  In our conversation last night (which lasted over 2 hours) I found myself shocked that this guy was still single.  He doesn’t seem to be emotionally stunted.  Nor does he appear to be socially inept.  He doesn’t spend his weekends LARPing.  He’s not a closet serial killer, and he assured me that he’s not gay (although I’m not sure why he felt the need to assure me of that) and has never before been married.

But…I can’t help think there’s got to be SOMETHING.  Something about this guy has got to be off…  He’s good-looking (or at least that’s what I pick up from his photos and just some other in-between-the-lines indicators), he’s got a family he loves, he’s insanely upfront and open, and by all counts appears to be just one of those “good guys” you always read about.  So…where’s that other shoe that surely about to drop right on my head?  I have no idea…at least not yet.

Now I’m not typically this skeptical…  In fact, more often than not, I’m the glass-is-half-full girl, however in the realm of dating (ESPECIALLY online dating), I tend towards being cautious.  I can’t help it.  I think anyone would who’s been burned as often as I have would be.  I’ve actually lost count of how many guys I’ve had great phone conversations with, but who turned out to be total duds in person.  I also have had others seem as great in person as they were on the phone only to never be heard from again after our meet-and-greet.  One even was amazing on email, practically proposing to me on the phone, but then when it came time to meet up in person, he completely freaked out and couldn’t go through with it.  Still others were not even interested enough to venture into a phone conversation.

That’s just a taste of my experiences in this arena – can you blame me therefore if I look at these new guys a little sideways?  The wounds are no longer raw from these other idiots in my past, but the scars are still there.

H’s story, as best I can summarize, is that he’s spent the majority of his life living and/or traveling all over the world (sound like anyone you know?)  He was in the Air Force working as a photojournalist.  About a year or so ago he was struck by a drunk driver and suffered a near-broken back.  The last year he’s spent in physical therapy getting back to himself.  He was unfortunately forced to give up his job since he couldn’t lift a can of coke let alone a camera bag, and so he ended up taking a job with a company in Mass. which focuses on technology program management (which sounds very similar to what I do with project management).

From what else I can gather, he’s smart, very articulate, extremely trusting, and doesn’t appear to have any unabomber tendencies.  Even though I don’t see any glaring red flags as yet, I think there is a potential yellow or orange one.  One of the questions he posed to me before we got into the whole open-emailing phase was centered around how I felt about opposite gender close friends.  We discussed this a little further last night since I had a hard time answering that question with the multiple choice selection, and I was sure there must be some driving force behind him asking it in the first place.  Turns out one of his best friends is a woman.  We didn’t discuss at length since it’s nothing I felt needed to be talked over in an initial phone conversation.  Neither would I care unless we became seriously involved.  Essentially I feel that if I were to end up in a serious relationship/marriage with any guy, I would expect that the most intimate relationship in my and his life would be ours.  I would think it strange if I got married and my best friend continued to be some guy I knew that wasn’t my husband…and I would hope my husband would think that would be strange as well!  Call me crazy, but I’ve seen relationships torn apart over less.  I’m not saying it would be an issue, but just that it could be.  However, it’s also not something I’m particularly concerned with right now – just one more reason for caution.

So that’s all the news…at least for now.  Looks like I may actually get to meet him as early as May.  I was going up to Boston anyway to hang w/S and the girls over that weekend so H might come and take me out for dinner.  I’ll be sure to keep you guys posted.

Oh the post title?  Yeah, that was just a reminder to myself to remain cautious, but not be timid.  Cross the road, just make sure you look both ways.

XOXO

Happiness Is

26 March 2009 · 3 comments

Things have been somewhat overwhelming recently. Work is nuts with 2 rounds of layoffs sweeping through in less than 6 months. My personal life is a mass of activities. My budget is rockin’ while my debt snowball is rollin’. My house is slowly having more things done to it which make it that much more like a home to me. And through all this madness, I’ve barely blogged except for the other day when I just felt the need to vent a little. I guess you could say it was a little verbal processing run amok.

Sidebar: I just was distracted by watching Chena bury some item of great value (at least to her) in the folds of a towel on the floor. But it’s cool, she’s a dog. It’s what she does. Still, kinda funny.

Anyway, despite my little online explosion the other day, I just wanted to let everyone know that I’m really doing pretty well – this especially for those of you who don’t see me all that often and might not know what to think when I don’t post for weeks and then suddenly come out with a message like I did on Monday.

But I’m good. I’m busy, I’m happy, I love my dog, I’m healthy, I have hardwood floors, I have a new patio door, I’m getting a new patio to go with it next week, and I’m employed. I’ve been thinking it over the past couple of days and decided that, despite any guy thing (or lack thereof) I’m not about to be bullied by happiness.

I should probably explain that last statement.

Dave Ramsey says in one of our FPU lessons (and he may have been quoting someone else, I don’t know) that if you’re not careful, happiness can become a “bully in a schoolyard”. Always drawing a line in the sand, but as soon as you step over that line – as soon as you obtain what you’re after – it moves. But happiness is not really the greener grass on the other side of the fence. Happiness is where you are right now, regardless of incidentals.

I think I started to learn this lesson somewhat when I was in England. I was frustrated with being in the UK – especially being so far out in the middle of nowhere. But I also knew that it was a good time in my life…something I would look back on and appreciate – although there were many times when I couldn’t wait to be “looking back” on it instead of living it! Still, I knew that this was the case, so I made a concerted effort to find things that I loved and appreciated about Leamington, Warwickshire, and the UK in general. Even now, I think back on that time and remember fondly my fabulous flat on Clarendon Square, the amazing Irish butter, Muellers Crumble Corners, riding my bike to work, walking everywhere, taking weekend trips into Europe, being so close to Stratford that I had a membership with the Royal Shakespeare Company at a “locals” rate… I could go on and on. So despite the fact that it was rough year (and I know I complained a lot), I still could appreciate it and still do. So much so that I’d go back for the right opportunity.

That whole concept of completing the phrase, “Happiness is [fill in the blank]” is really kinda difficult to do. Happiness is…uh…what? How can you define happiness if it’s a moving target? And there’s the rub.

Happiness isn’t that thing just out of reach. It’s not the marriage and kids you don’t have. It’s not the job you wished you’d gotten. It’s not the car you drive (or wish you drove). Neither is happiness a particular thing that happens once or many times over. Happiness is now. Happiness just IS.

If we don’t stop tying our happiness to the having or attaining of specific things, we’ll always be bullied by it and we’ll never find true contentment.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that sure, I’m missing some stuff from my life that I’d like to have, but ultimately, those missing items don’t necessarily detract from my ability to still see and enjoy and love and find happiness in where I am right now.

Paul said it like this in Philippians 4:11 – “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.”

Rock on Paul. That’s what I’m talking about.

A Rock & A Hard Place

23 March 2009 · 7 comments

Some of you already know this little drama that’s been unfolding for me recently. The short of it is this – I like this guy who, odds are I have no future with. I’ve known him for awhile and really enjoy his friendship and being around him. I have absolutely no idea if he feels the same way. I assume that he likes me on some level at least – that is to say he hasn’t shunned me or anything. But then he also hasn’t asked me out.

Janelle’s thoughts on this were the most encouraging. I think she said that, in all the time she’s known me, she’s never seen me have this good of a relationship with a guy I wasn’t dating. We’re just friends…and good friends at that, at least I think we are. I feel incredibly comfortable with him, and I think he feels the same with me. We’re alike enough to have things to talk about, but different enough to be interesting. He makes me laugh – and vice versa (always good to find someone who appreciates my sometimes-insane sense of humor). I feel like I could say just about anything to him, and again vice versa (I think).

The agony is two-fold.

On the one hand, as I said, we most likely have no future. I also have horrible luck with men. The ones I like usually don’t like me back – or if they do, chances are there’s something terribly wrong with them that only time will reveal. The ones that do like me are usually desperados who mistake my being nice for romantic interest (the LARPer springs to mind). There is a part of me that REALLY wants to know whether there is any interest on his side or not…although I’m not sure which response would be worse.

Allow me to explain.

If the answer is that he likes me too, well then I’m faced with what to do with that when getting involved with him would be a potentially slippery slope into a place I don’t know if I really want to be. At the same time, this would be a nice ego boost – everyone wants to be wanted, after all.

If the answer is that no, he isn’t interested in me as anything more than a friend, then I think I would be more hurt than I have been in a long, long time. I mean, what could be worse than someone who knows you incredibly well then decides that they don’t have any interest in who you really are. It’s one thing to have someone reject you who doesn’t really know you. It’s another matter altogether to be rejected by someone who does. Call me crazy, but THAT is not something I particularly want to face.

Where do I go from here? I have no idea. I love what Jel had to say when we spoke last night – she’s so encouraging. But at the end of the day, caring about someone only seems to amplify feelings of loneliness and my desire to share my life and experiences with someone which I’m otherwise pretty much able to ignore.

Talk about a rock & a hard place.

So…now what?

So It’s Come To This…

21 February 2009 · 4 comments

First things first… Been awhile since I’ve blogged and I know that “I’ve been busy” is not a real excuse, because, let’s face it, we’re ALL busy – but it’s the only excuse I have so there you go. This morning I’m a little less-busy because I’m waiting around for a contractor to come by and measure for my new patio door. Lucky you.

But the real reason I’ve been spurred to write this morning is due to a story I just saw on Good Morning America.

I’m not normally a morning show watcher (GMA or any others), but they caught my interest this morning when they previewed a piece on Twitter they were going to do. Being a big fan of Twitter, I naturally was interested to hear what they were going to say (they think Twitter’s great, by the way).

But then Twitter wasn’t all that attracted my attention. They went on to discuss a dating compatibility tool that uses – get this – DNA.

That’s right my fellow singletons – for just $99 you can give GenePartner a swab of DNA from your cheek and have them run their tests to provide you with your given genetic compatibility with others looking for that “special someone”.

Hm.

GMA went and followed a couple on their first date where they had them do their DNA testing before having dinner. The results were then revealed on GMA this morning with the couple sitting in the studio. This particular couple came out with a 90% match which only seemed to solidify what they had already discovered from their date. So they already knew they liked each other. If this couple had been doing this on their own, this means that they’d have spent $99 to find out what they already knew.

A few things about this make me uneasy, but I’ll just share a couple of them.

First, what if it had gone the other way? What if they’d be out on the date, liked each other, but then the DNA results came back to say that they weren’t genetically compatible. That alone may not have been enough for them call it quits right away, but I can’t help but feel like knowing that in the back of their minds wouldn’t undermine their possible relationship. Think about it – what if you were married, engaged, or even seriously dating someone and you and your partner decided to do this DNA compatibility testing for kicks and it came back that you weren’t genetically compatible. How much would that suck?

Another thing that troubles me about this is it further shows what I see as a burgeoning trend among our single society to run after so-called scientific methods of finding your “perfect match.” While I’m far more inclined to listen to what a psychologist would say about the kind of man who would be good for me, I still would rather leave it up to my friends, family, and God to bring me the right guy across my path.

And maybe that’s the difference. Maybe in the absence of a belief and trust in God to hook me up with the man I should be with, scientific methods work as a substitute. They certainly seem far more concrete than what many see as an ambiguous God who surely has far more important matters to attend to than finding me a date for the weekend, right? Or maybe some of the motivation stems from the GenX-ers fear of divorce. We are the first real generation of divorce, after all… Perhaps as a result of that, we’re searching for new ways of making sure the one we pick is the right one for us – after all, who really goes into a relationship wanting to divorce? Perhaps those from broken homes think that they can avoid this fate if they have enough unbiased, third-party input into selecting their mate. I’m totally speculating here, but there might be something to that…

I’m not trying to say that some of these scientific approaches couldn’t help…God is the master scientist, after all. At the very least these types of tests and things can probably teach you something about yourself that you may not have already known which is certainly valuable.

eharmony, for example, has an interesting personality test that it uses to find your matches for you. So while eHarmony failed to match me up successfully with anyone in the 6 years (and hundreds of dollars) I spent with them, I still found the personality test output interesting. And, while some of the matches they sent me were dogs, there were some good guys as well. Of course the ones I liked never called me back… If we’d had a DNA test in hand that said we were genetically compatible, would that have changed anything? I doubt it. We had eHarmony’s endorsement that we were compatible from a personality standpoint and clearly that wasn’t enough.

The fact is, you either feel it or you don’t and no amount of scientific testing or results can change that. All it can really do is potentially affirm a choice you’ve already made, but I don’t think it can make you try against your gut reaction. I speak from experience on this one.

So maybe this makes me naive, but after all the online dating I’ve done over the past decade, I’ve come to the conclusion that at the end of the day, I would rather put my faith and trust in the God of the universe to take care of my needs – emotional or otherwise.

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